Five Criticisms - I

I.

(On many recent novels by the conventional unconventionalists.)

Old Pantaloon, lean-witted, dour and rich,
    After grim years of soul-destroying greed,
Weds Columbine, that April-blooded witch
    "Too young" to know that gold was not her need.

Then enters Pierrot, young, rebellious, warm,
    With well-lined purse, to teach the fine-souled wife
That the old fool's gold should aid a world-reform
    (Confused with sex). This wrecks the old fool's life.

O, there's no doubt that Pierrot was clever,
    Quick to break hearts and quench the dying flame;
But why, for his own pride, does Pierrot never
    Choose his own mate, work for his own high aim,

Stand on his feet, and pay for his own tune?
Why scold, cheat, rob and kill poor Pantaloon?

Alfred Noyes

Alfred Noyes was an English poet, short-story writer, and playwright, best known for his ballads, particularly "The Highwayman" (1906). Born on September 16, 1880, in Wolverhampton, he published his first collection of poems, "The Loom of Years," in 1902. His narrative poetry and works often evoked strong imagery and emotion. Noyes also lectured in various universities across the United States. He passed away on June 25, 1958.

Alfred Noyes

The Matin-Song Of Friar Tuck

Alfred Noyes, Simple Poetry

Namesakes

Alfred Noyes, Simple Poetry

The Reward Of Song

Alfred Noyes, Simple Poetry

The Old Gentleman With The Amber Snuff-Box

Alfred Noyes, Simple Poetry

English

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Five Criticisms - V

(An Answer)

[After reading an article in a leading London journal by an "intellectual" who attacked one of the noblest poets and greatest artists of a former century (or any century) on the ground that his high ethical standards were incompatible with the new lawlessness. This vicious lawlessness the writer described definitely, and he paid his tribute to dishonour as openly and brutally as any of the Bolsheviki could have done. I had always known that this was the real ground of the latter-day onslaught on some of the noblest literature of the past; but I had never seen it openly confessed before. The time has now surely come when, if our civilization is to make any fight at all against the new "red ruin and breaking up of laws," we must cease to belaud our slack-minded, latter-day "literature of rebellion" for its clev...

Alfred Noyes

Five Criticisms - II.

(On a certain goddess, acclaimed as "new" but known in Babylon.)

I saw the assembled artists of our day
    Waiting for light, for music and for song.
A woman stood before them, fresh as May
    And beautiful; but, in that modish throng,

None heeded her. They said, "In our first youth
    Surely, long since, your hair was touched with grey."
"I do not change," she answered. "I am Truth."
    "Old and banal," they sneered, and turned away.

Then came a formless thing, with breasts dyed scarlet.
    The roses in her hair were green and blue.
        "I am new," she said. "I change, and
            Death knows why."

Then with the eyes and gesture of a harlot
    She led them all forth, whinneying, "New, how new!
        Tell us your name!...

Alfred Noyes

Five Criticisms - III.

(On Certain of the Bolsheviki "Idealists.")

With half the force and thought you waste in rage
    Over your neighbor's house, or heart of stone,
You might have built your own new heritage,
    O fools, have you no hands, then, of your own?

Where is your pride? Is this your answer still,
    This the red flag that burns above our strife,
This the new cry that rings from Pisgah hill,
    "Our neighbor's money, or our neighbor's life"?

Be prouder. Let us build that nobler state
    With our own hands, with our own muscle and brain!
Your very victories die in hymns of hate;
    And your own envies are your heaviest chain.

Is there no rebel proud enough to say
    "We'll stand on our own feet, and win the day"?

Alfred Noyes

What Grandfather Said

(An epistle from a narrow-minded old gentleman to a young artist of superior intellect and intense realism.)


Your thoughts are for the poor and weak?
    Ah, no, the picturesque's your passion!
Your tongue is always in your cheek
    At poverty that's not in fashion.

You like a ploughman's rugged face,
    Or painted eyes in Piccadilly;
But bowler hats are commonplace,
    And thread-bare tradesmen simply silly.

The clerk that sings "God save the King,"
    And still believes his Tory paper,--
You hate the anæmic fool? I thought
    You loved the weak! Was that all vapour?

Ah, when you sneer, dear democrat,
    At such a shiny-trousered Tory
Because he doffs his poor old hat
    To what he thinks his country's glory,
<...

Alfred Noyes

Five Criticisms - IV.

(On Certain Realists.)

You with the quick sardonic eye
For all the mockeries of life,
Beware, in this dark masque of things that seem,
Lest even that tragic irony,
Which you discern in this our mortal strife,
Trick you and trap you, also, with a dream.

Last night I saw a dead man borne along
The city streets, passing a boisterous throng
That never ceased to laugh and shout and dance:
And yet, and yet,
For all the poison bitter minds might brew
From themes like this, I knew
That the stern Truth would not permit her glance
Thus to be foiled by flying straws of chance,
For her keen eyes on deeper skies are set,
And laws that tragic ironists forget.

She saw the dead man's life, from birth to death,--
All that he knew of love and ...

Alfred Noyes

Prologue To 'The Three Hours After Marriage'

Authors are judged by strange capricious rules;
The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools:
Yet sure the best are most severely fated;
For fools are only laugh'd at, wits are hated.
Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor;
But fool 'gainst fool, is barbarous civil war.
Why on all authors, then, should critics fall?
Since some have writ, and shown no wit at all.
Condemn a play of theirs, and they evade it;
Cry, 'Damn not us, but damn the French, who made it.'
By running goods these graceless owlers gain;
Theirs are the rules of France, the plots of Spain;
But wit, like wine, from happier climates brought,
Dash'd by these rogues, turns English common draught.
They pall Molière's and Lopez' sprightly strain,
And teach dull harlequins to grin in vain.
...

Alexander Pope