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.

September 16, 1880

June 25, 1958

English

Alfred Noyes

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Kilmeny

Dark, dark lay the drifters against the red West,
    As they shot their long meshes of steel overside;
And the oily green waters were rocking to rest
    When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide;
And nobody knew where that lassie would roam,
    For the magic that called her was tapping unseen.
It was well-nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home,
    And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best,
    And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde,
And a secret her skipper had never confessed,
    Not even at dawn, to his newly-wed bride;
And a wireless that whispered above, like a gnome,
    The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin....
O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home;
    But nobody k...

Alfred Noyes

Lines For A Sun-Dial

With shadowy pen I write,
            Till time be done,
        Good news of some strange light,
Some far off sun.

Alfred Noyes

Memories Of The Pacific Coast

I know a land, I, too,
    Where warm keen incense on the sea-wind blows,
And all the winter long the skies are blue,
    And the brown deserts blossom with the rose.

Deserts of all delight,
    Cactus and palm and earth of thirsty gold,
Dark purple blooms round eaves of sun-washed white,
    And that Hesperian fruit men sought of old.

O, to be wandering there,
    Under the palm-trees, on that sunset shore,
Where the waves break in song, and the bright air
    Is crystal clean; and peace is ours, once more.

There Beauty dwells,
    Beauty, re-born in whiteness from the foam;
And Youth returns with all its magic spells,
    And the heart finds its long-forgotten home,--

Home--home! Where is that land?
    For, when I dream it found...

Alfred Noyes

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

Namesakes

But where's the brown drifter that went out alone?
    --Roll and go, and fare you well--
Was her name Peggy Nutten? That name is my own.
    Fare you well, my sailor.
They sang in the dark, "Let her go! Let her go!"
And she sailed to the West, where the broad waters flow;
And the others come back, but ... the bitter winds blow.
    Ah, fare you well, my sailor.

The women, at evening, they wave and they cheer.
    --Roll and go, and fare you well--
They're waiting to welcome their lads at the pier.
    Fare you well, my sailor.
They're all coming home in the twilight below;
But there's one little boat.... Let her go! Let her go!
She carried my heart, and a heart for the foe.
    Ah, fare you well, my sailor.

Alfred Noyes

Nippon

Last night, I dreamed of Nippon....
    I saw a cloud of white
Drifting before the sunset
    On seas of opal light.

Beyond the wide Pacific
    I saw its mounded snow
Miraculously changing
    In that deep evening glow,

To rosy rifts and hillocks,
    To orchards that I knew,
To snows of peach and cherry,
    And feathers of bamboo.

I saw, on twisted bridges,
    In blue and crimson gleams,
The lanterns of the fishers,
    Along the brook of dreams.

I saw the wreaths of incense
    Like little ghosts arise,
From temples under Fuji,
    From Fuji to the skies.

I saw that fairy mountain....
    I watched it form and fade.
No doubt the gods were singing,
    When Nippon isle was made.

Alfred Noyes

On A Mountain Top

On this high altar, fringed with ferns
    That darken against the sky,
The dawn in lonely beauty burns
    And all our evils die.

The struggling sea that roared below
    Is quieter than the dew,
Quieter than the clouds that flow
    Across the stainless blue.

On this bare crest, the angels kneel
    And breathe the sweets that rise
From flowers too little to reveal
    Their beauty to our eyes.

I have seen Edens on the earth
    With queenly blooms arrayed;
But here the fairest come to birth,
    The smallest flowers He made.

O, high above the sounding pine,
    And richer, sweeter far,
The wild thyme wakes. The celandine
    Looks at the morning star.

They may not see the heavens unfold.
    They breath...

Alfred Noyes

On The Western Front

(1916)


I.

I found a dreadful acre of the dead,
    Marked with the only sign on earth that saves.
The wings of death were hurrying overhead,
    The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves;

For the deep gun-pits, with quick stabs of flame,
    Made their own thunders of the sunlit air;
Yet, as I read the crosses, name by name,
    Mort pour la France, it seemed that peace was there;
Sunlight and peace, a peace too deep for thought,
    The peace of tides that underlie our strife,
The peace with which the moving heavens are fraught,
    The peace that is our everlasting life.

The loose earth shook. The very hills were stirred.
The silence of the dead was all I heard.


II.

We, who lie here, have...

Alfred Noyes

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

Peace In A Palace

"You were weeping in the night," said the Emperor,
    "Weeping in your sleep, I am told."
"It was nothing but a dream," said the Empress;
    But her face grew gray and old.
"You thought you saw our German God defeated?"
    "Oh, no!" she said. "I saw no lightnings fall.
I dreamed of a whirlpool of green water,
    Where something had gone down. That was all.

"All but the whimper of the sea gulls flying,
    Endlessly round and round,
Waiting for the faces, the faces from the darkness,
    The dreadful rising faces of the drowned.

"It was nothing but a dream," said the Empress.
    "I thought I was walking on the sea;
And the foam rushed up in a wild smother,
    And a crowd of little faces looked at me.

They were drowning! They were ...

Alfred Noyes

Princeton

(1917)

The first four lines of this poem were written for inscription on the first joint memorial to the American and British soldiers who fell in the Revolutionary War. This memorial was recently dedicated at Princeton.


I.

Here Freedom stood, by slaughtered friend and foe,
    And ere the wrath paled or that sunset died,
Looked through the ages: then, with eyes aglow,
    Laid them, to wait that future, side by side.


II.

Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine
    Through dog-wood red and white,
And round the gray quadrangles, line by line,
    The windows fill with light,
Where Princeton calls to Magdalen, tower to tower,
    Twin lanthorns of the law,
And those cream-white magnolia boughs embower
    Th...

Alfred Noyes

Republic And Motherland

(1912)

(Written after entering New York Harbor at Daybreak)


Up the vast harbor with the morning sun
    The ship swept in from sea;
Gigantic towers arose, the night was done,
    And--there stood Liberty.

Silent, the great torch lifted in one hand,
    The dawn in her proud eyes,
Silent, for all the shouts that vex her land,
    Silent, hailing the skies;

Hailing that mightier Kingdom of the Blest
    Our seamen sought of old,
The dream that lured the nations through the West,
    The city of sunset gold.

Saxon and Norman in one wedded soul
    Shook out one flag like fire;
But westward, westward, moved the gleaming goal,
    Westward, the vast desire.

Westward and ever westward ran the call,
    ...

Alfred Noyes

Riddles Of Merlin

As I was walking
    Alone by the sea,
"What is that whisper?"
    Said Merlin to me.
"Only," I answered,
    "The sigh of the wave"--
"Oh, no," replied Merlin,
    "'Tis the grass on your grave."

As I lay dreaming
    In churchyard ground
"Listen," said Merlin,
    "What is that sound?"
"The green grass is growing,"
    I answered; but he
Chuckled, "Oh, no!
    'Tis the sound of the sea."

As I went homeward
    At dusk by the shore,
"What is that crimson?"
    Said Merlin once more.
"Only the sun," I said.
"Sinking to rest"--
"Sunset for East," he said,
    "Sunrise for West."

Alfred Noyes

Slave And Emperor

"Our cavalry have rescued Nazareth from the enemy whose supermen described Christianity as a creed for slaves."


The Emperor mocked at Nazareth
    In his almighty hour.
The Slave that bowed himself to death
And walked with slaves in Nazareth,
What were his words but wasted breath
    Before that "will to power"?

Yet, in the darkest hour of all,
    When black defeat began,
The Emperor heard the mountains quake,
He felt the graves beneath him shake,
He watched his legions rally and break,
    And he whimpered as they ran.

"I hear a shout that moves the earth,
    A cry that wakes the dead!
Will no one tell me whence they come,
For all my messengers are dumb?
What power is this that comes to birth
    And breaks my power?" he sa...

Alfred Noyes

Sunlight And Sea

Give me the sunlight and the sea
And who shall take my heaven from me?

Light of the Sun, Life of the Sun,
O happy, bold companion,
Whose golden laughters round me run,
Making wine of the blue air
With wild-rose kisses everywhere,
Browning the limb, flushing the cheek,
Apple-fragrant, leopard-sleek,
Dancing from thy red-curtained East
Like a Nautch-girl to my feast,
Proud because her lord, the Spring,
Praised the way those anklets ring;
Or wandering like a white Greek maid
Leaf-dappled through the dancing shade,
Where many a green-veined leaf imprints
Breast and limb with emerald tints,
That softly net her silken shape
But let the splendour still escape,
While rosy ghosts of roses flow
Over the supple rose and snow.

But swee...

Alfred Noyes

The Avenue Of The Allies

This is the song of the wind as it came
Tossing the flags of the nations to flame:

        I am the breath of God. I am His laughter.
I am His Liberty. That is my name.

So it descended, at night, on the city.
So it went lavishing beauty and pity,
Lighting the lordliest street of the world
With half of the banners that earth has unfurled;
Over the lamps that are brighter than stars.
Laughing aloud on its way to the wars,
Proud as America, sweeping along
Death and destruction like notes in a song,
Leaping to battle as man to his mate,
Joyous as God when he moved to create,--
        Never was voice of a nation so glorious,
Glad of its cause and afire with its fate!
Never did eagle on mightier pinion
Tower to the height of a brighter domin...

Alfred Noyes

The Bell

The Temple Bell was out of tune,
That once out-melodied sun and moon.

Instead of calling folk to prayer
It spread an evil in the air.

Instead of a song, from north to south,
It put a lie in the wind's mouth.

The very palms beneath it died,
So harsh it jarred, so loud it lied.

Then the gods told the blue-robed bonze:
"Your Bell is only wrought of bronze.

Lower it down, cast it again,
Or you shall shake the heavens in vain."

Then, as the mighty cauldron hissed,
Men brought the wealth that no man missed.

Yea, they brought silver, they brought gold,
And melted them into the seething mould.

The miser brought his greening hoard,
And the king cast in his sword.

Yet, when the Bell in the Tem...

Alfred Noyes

The Big Black Trawler

The very best ship that ever I knew,
    --Ah-way O, to me O--
Was a big black trawler with a deep-sea crew--
    Sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.

There was one old devil with a broken nose
    --Ah-way O, to me O--
He was four score years, as I suppose--
    But, sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.

We was wrecked last March, in a Polar storm
    --Ah-way O, to me O--
And we asked the old cripple if his feet was warm--
    Sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.

And the old, old devil (he was ninety at the most)
    --Ah-way O, to me O--
Roars, "Ay, warm as a lickle piece of toast"--
    So sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.

"For I soaked my sea-boots and my dungare...

Alfred Noyes

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