The Old Fool In The Wood

"If I could whisper you all I know,"
    Said the Old Fool in the Wood,
"You'd never say that green leaves grow.
    You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood
The Master must be in today,
    To think such thoughts,'
That's what you'd say."

"If I could whisper you all I've heard,"
    Said the Old Fool in the fern,
"You'd never say the song of a bird.
    You'd say, 'I'll listen, and p'raps I'll learn
One word of His joy as He passed this way,
    One syllable more,'
That's what you'd say."

"If I could tell you all the rest,"
    Said the Old Fool under the skies,
"You'd hug your griefs against your breast
    And whisper with love-lit eyes,
'I am one with the sorrow that made the may,
    And the pulse of His heart,'
That's what you'd say."

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

Wireless

Alfred Noyes, Simple Poetry

Nippon

Alfred Noyes, Simple Poetry

The Open Door

Alfred Noyes, Simple Poetry

The Big Black Trawler

Alfred Noyes, Simple Poetry

English

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Peace

Give me the pulse of the tide again
    And the slow lapse of the leaves,
The rustling gold of a field of grain
    And a bird in the nested eaves;

And a fishing-smack in the old harbour
    Where all was happy and young;
And an echo or two of the songs I knew
    When songs could still be sung.

For I would empty my heart of all
    This world's implacable roar,
And I would turn to my home, and fall
    Asleep in my home once more;

And I would forget what the cities say,
    And the folly of all the wise,
And turn to my own true folk this day,
    And the love in their constant eyes.

There is peace, peace, where the sea-birds wheel,
    And peace in the breaking wave;
And I have a broken heart to heal,
    And a broken so...

Alfred Noyes

A New Madrigal To An Old Melody

(It is supposed that Shadow-of-a-Leaf uses the word "clear" in a more ancient sense of "beautiful.")


As along a dark pine-bough, in slender white mystery
    The moon lay to listen, above the thick fern,
In a deep dreaming wood that is older than history
    I heard a lad sing, and I stilled me to learn;
So rarely he lilted his long-forgot litany,--
    Fall, April; fall, April, in dew on our dearth!
Bring balm, and bring poppy, bring deep sleepy dittany
    For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth.

Then I drew back the branches. I saw him that chanted it.
    I saw his fool's bauble. I knew his old grief.
I knew that old greenwood and the shadow that haunted it,--
    My fool, my lost jester, my Shadow-of-a-Leaf!
And "why," I said, "w...

Alfred Noyes

The Grave By The Lake

Where the Great Lake's sunny smiles
Dimple round its hundred isles,
And the mountain's granite ledge
Cleaves the water like a wedge,
Ringed about with smooth, gray stones,
Rest the giant's mighty bones.

Close beside, in shade and gleam,
Laughs and ripples Melvin stream;
Melvin water, mountain-born,
All fair flowers its banks adorn;
All the woodland's voices meet,
Mingling with its murmurs sweet.

Over lowlands forest-grown,
Over waters island-strown,
Over silver-sanded beach,
Leaf-locked bay and misty reach,
Melvin stream and burial-heap,
Watch and ward the mountains keep.

Who that Titan cromlech fills?
Forest-kaiser, lord o' the hills?
Knight who on the birchen tree
Carved his savage heraldry?
Priest o' the pine-...

John Greenleaf Whittier

Michael Oaktree

Under an arch of glorious leaves I passed
Out of the wood and saw the sickle moon
Floating in daylight o'er the pale green sea.

It was the quiet hour before the sun
Gathers the clouds to prayer and silently
Utters his benediction on the waves
That whisper round the death-bed of the day.
The labourers were returning from the farms
And children danced to meet them. From the doors
Of cottages there came a pleasant clink
Where busy hands laid out the evening meal.
From smouldering elms around the village spire
There soared and sank the caw of gathering rooks.
The faint-flushed clouds were listening to the tale
The sea tells to the sunset with one sigh.
The last white wistful sea-bird sought for peace,
And the last fishing-boat stole o'er the bar,
And fr...

Alfred Noyes

The Old Man

Lo! steadfast and serene,
In patient pause between
The seen and the unseen,
    What gentle zephyrs fan
Your silken silver hair, -
And what diviner air
Breathes round you like a prayer,
    Old Man?

Can you, in nearer view
Of Glory, pierce the blue
Of happy Heaven through;
    And, listening mutely, can
Your senses, dull to us,
Hear Angel-voices thus,
In chorus glorious -
    Old Man?

In your reposeful gaze
The dusk of Autumn days
Is blent with April haze,
    As when of old began
The bursting of the bud
Of rosy babyhood -
When all the world was good,
    Old Man.

And yet I find a sly
Little twinkle in your eye;
And your whisperingly shy
    Little laugh is simply an
Internal shout o...

James Whitcomb Riley

The Little Roads

The great roads are all grown over
    That seemed so firm and white.
The deep black forests have covered them.
    How should I walk aright?
How should I thread these tangled mazes,
    Or grope to that far off light?
I stumble round the thickets, and they turn me
    Back to the thickets and the night.

Yet, sometimes, at a word, an elfin pass-word,
    (O, thin, deep, sweet with beaded rain!)
There shines, through a mist of ragged-robins,
    The old lost April-coloured lane,
That leads me from myself; for, at a whisper,
    Where the strong limbs thrust in vain,
At a breath, if my heart help another heart,
    The path shines out for me again.

A thin thread, a rambling lane for lovers
    To the light of the world's one May,
Where the ...

Alfred Noyes