Alfred Noyes

“ Know you the light that their soul is pursuing?
Know you the might of the world they are making,
This nation of nations whose heart is awaking?
What is this mingling of peoples and races?
Look at the wonder and joy in their faces!
Look how the folds of the union are spreading!
Look, for the nations are come to their wedding.
How shall the folk of our tongue be afraid of it?
England was born of it. England was made of it,
Made of this welding of tribes into one,
This marriage of pilgrims that followed the sun! ”

“ Whispering, "Remember, though the boughs forget the hawthorn,
Yet shall I return to you, that was your lady May."—
But why are you dancing now, O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham,
And why are you singing of a May that is fled?—
O, there's music to be born, though we pluck the old fiddle-strings,
And a world's May awaking where the fields lay dead.
[65] And we dance, dance, dreaming of a lady most beautiful
That shall walk the green valleys of this dark earth one day,
And call to us gently, "O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham,
I am looking for my children. Awake, and come away." ”

“ 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. ”

“ No praise from the careless throng;
For song is the cry of a lover
In quest of an answering song.
As a child might run to his elders
With news of an opening flower
We should walk with our young companion
And talk to his heart for an hour,
As once by my own green firwood,
And once by a Western sea,
Thank God, my own good comrades
Have walked and talked with me.
Too mighty to make men sorrow,
Too weak to heal their pain
(Though they that remember the hawthorn
May find their heaven again) ,
We are moved by a deeper hunger;
We are bound by a stronger cord ”

“ We may not even know if you betray
Our hope, to make earth better for mankind.
Only our silence, in the night, shall grow
More silent, as the stars grow in the sky;
And, while you deck our graves, you shall not know
How many scornful legions pass you by.
For we have heard you say (when we were living)
That some small dream of good would "cost too much." ”

“ Lifting the torch of your Freedom on hungering faces
That sailed to the setting sun;
You that have made of mankind in your own proud regions
The music of man to be,
How should the old earth sing of you, now, as your legions
Rise to set all men free?
How should the singer that knew the proud vision and loved it,
In the days when not all men knew,
Gaze through his tears, on the light, now the world has approved it;
Or dream, when the dream comes true? ”

“ WONDER in happy eyes
Fades, fades away:
And the angel-coloured skies
Whisper farewell.
Loveliness over the strings of the heart may stray
In fugitive melodies;
But Oh, the hand of the Master must not stay,
Even for a breath;
For to prolong one joy, or even to dwell
On one rich chord of pain,
Beyond the pulse of the song, would untune heaven
And drown the stars in death.
So youth with its love-note dies;
And beauty fades in the air,
To make the master-symphony immortal,
And find new life and deeper wonder there.
[99] PEACE ”

“ Fade into a dream of grief,
And the palm-trees overhead
Whisper that all grief is dead.
Sister Sunlight, lead me then
Into thy healing seas again....
For when we swim out, side by side,
Like a lover with his bride,
When thy lips are salt with brine,
And thy wild eyes flash in mine,
The music of a mightier sea
Beats with my blood in harmony.
I breast the primal flood of being,
Too clear for speech, too near for seeing;
[120] And to his heart, new reconciled,
The Eternal takes his earth-bound child. ”

“ And shot-rent flags a-stream from every mast
Moved in a deepening splendour, not to make
A shield for England of her own dead past;
But, with a living dream to arm her soul at last.
[144] We come to die for England: through the hush
Of gathered nations rose that regal cry,
From naked oaken walls one word could crush
If those vast armoured throats dared to reply:
But there the most implacable enemy
Felt his eyes fill with gladder, prouder tears,
As Nelson's calm eternal face went by,
Gazing beyond all perishable fears
To some diviner goal above the waste of years. ”

“ Then ghostly clouds arose, with billowing breast,
White clouds that turned to sails upon their way,
Red clouds that burned like flags against the West,
Till even the conquering fleet in silence lay
Dazed with that strange old light, and night grew bright as day.
We come to fight for Freedom! The great East
Heard, and was rent asunder like a veil.
Host upon host out of the night increased
Its towering clouds and crowded zones of sail:
England, our England, canst thou faint or fail?
[142] We come to fight for Freedom yet once more! ”

“ But sings of friendship now,
To feed the old enemy's harvest fifty-fold
The green earth takes the plough.
IV.
Through this May night if one great ghost should stray
With deep remembering eyes,
Where that old meadow of battle smiles away
Its blood-stained memories,
If Washington should walk, where friend and foe
Sleep and forget the past,
Be sure his unquenched heart would leap to know
Their hosts are joined at last. ”

“ They were one to a thousand on that fierce emprise.
The shores they sought
Were armoured, past all thought.
[56] O, they knew fear, be assured, as the brave must know it,
With youth and its happiness bidding their last good-byes;
Till thoughts, more dear
Than life, cast out all fear.
For if, as we think, they remembered the brown-roofed homesteads,
And the scent of the hawthorn hedges when daylight dies,
Old happy places,
Young eyes and fading faces;
One dream was dearer that night than the best of their boyhood,
One hope more radiant than any their hearts could prize. ”

“ And there were all those others, Drake and Blake,
Rodney and Howard, Byron, Collingwood;
With deathless eyes aflame for England's sake,
As on their ancient decks they proudly stood,—
Decks washed of old with England's purplest blood;
And there, once more, each rushing oaken side
Bared its dark-throated, thirsty, gleaming brood
Of cannon, watched by laughing lads who died
Long, long ago for England and her ancient pride.
We come to fight for England! ”

“ 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,
[117] Where the white dropping flakes may wet our faces
As we lift them to the bloom-bowed spray:
O Master, shall we ask Thee, then, for high-roads,
Or down upon our knees and pray
That Thou wilt ever lose us in Thy little lanes,
And lead us by a wandering way. ”

“ 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!
[92] And "why," I said, "why, all this while, have you left me so
Luckless in melody, lonely in mirth?"
"Oh, why," he sang, "why has this world then bereft me so
Soon of my Marian, so long laid in earth?
"In the years that are gone," he said, "love was more fortunate. ”

“ Till—in one night—the crosses rose like flowers,
[12] Legions of small white crosses, mile on mile,
Pencilled with names that had outfought all pain,
Where every shell-torn acre seems to smile—
Who shall destroy the cross that rose again?
Out of the world's Walpurgis, where hope perished,
Where all the forms of faith in ruin fell,
Where every sign of heaven that earth had cherished
Shrivelled among the lava-floods of hell,
The eternal Cross that conquers might with right
Rose like a star to lead us through the night.
IV.
How shall the world remember? ”

“ Yellows the clouds overhead.
Where the Admiral stands there's a star,
But his column is lost in the gloom;
For the brazen doors are ajar,
And the Lion awakes, and the doom.
He is not of a chosen race.
His strength is the strength of the skies,
In whose glory all nations have place,
In whose downfall Liberty dies.
He is mighty, but he is just.
He shall live to the end of years.
He shall bring the proud to the dust.
He shall raise the weak to the spheres. ”

“ Falls to the stronger, till once more we near
The enfolding splendour of the whole. Our God
Has been too long a partial God. We are all
Made in His image, men and birds and beasts,
Mountains and clouds and cataracts and suns,
With those great Beings above our little world,
A height beyond for every depth below,
Those long-forgotten Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,
Existences that live and move in realms
As far beyond our thought as Europe lies
With all its little arts and sciences
Beyond the comprehension of the worm.
We are all partial images, we need
What lies beyond us to complete our souls ”

“ Let the fools go paint themselves with woad,
For we've a jest between us, Truth and I.
We know that those who live by fashion die
Also by fashion, and that mode kills mode.
We know the great new age is on the road,
And death is at the heart of every lie. ”

“ Ay, there is the skipper that knows how to scare 'em.
Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!
Look at the sea-wives he keeps in his harem,
Wicked young merry-maids, buxom and brown:
There's Rosalind, the sea-witch, and Gipsy so lissom,
All dancing like ducks in the teeth of the squall,
With a bright eye for Huns, and a Hotchkiss to kiss 'em ”

“ Throngs of all nations filled that glittering way;
And, rich with dreams of the approaching day,
Flags of all nations trampled down the night.
No clouds, at sunset, die in airs as bright.
No clouds, at dawn, awake in winds as gay ”

“ 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,
[135] The wild thyme wakes. The celandine
Looks at the morning star.
They may not see the heavens unfold.
They breathe no out-worn prayer ”

“ The cloud of white faces, in the black open boat,
And the wild pleading woman that clasps her dead lover
And wraps her loose hair round his breast and his throat.
"Come, lady, he's dead." "No, I feel his heart beating.
He's living, I know. But he's numbed with the cold.
[51] See, I'm wrapping my hair all around him to warm him"——
—"No. We can't keep the dead, dear. Come, loosen your hold. ”

“ The only Bell that wakes the dead,
And Stockton Signer raised his head,
And called to all the deacons in the ancient burial-ground.
[29] "The Bell, the Bell is ringing! Give me back my rusty sword.
Though I thought the wars were done,
Though I thought our peace was won,
Yet I signed the Declaration, and the dead must keep their word.
"There's only one great ghost I know could make that 'larum ring.
It's the captain that we knew
In the ancient buff and blue,
It's our Englishman, George Washington, who fought the German king!" ”

“ Love and an hour may quite out-run the years,
And give us more to hear and more to see
Than life can wash away with all its tears.
Dear, when we part, at last, that sunset sky
Shall not be touched with deeper hues than this;
But we shall ride the lightning ere we die
And seize our brief infinitude of bliss,
With time to spare for all that heaven can tell,
While eyes meet eyes, and look their last farewell.
[103] THE MATIN-SONG OF FRIAR TUCK I.
IF souls could sing to heaven's high King
As blackbirds pipe on earth,
How those delicious courts would ring
With gusts of lovely mirth! ”

“ Thousands of flags for Great Britain aflame
Answer their sisters in Liberty's name.
Belgium is burning in pride overhead.
Poland is near, and her sunrise is red.
Under and over, and fluttering between,
Italy burgeons in red, white, and green.
See, how they climb like adventurous flowers,
Over the tops of the terrible towers....
There, in the darkness, the glories are mated.
There, in the darkness, a world is created. ”

“ 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."
[107] Then with the eyes and gesture of a harlot
She led them all forth, whinneying, "New, how new! ”

“ And the clouds lift on high
Like the slow waves of his mane
And the narrowing lids conceal
The furnaces of his eyes.
Their gold is gone out. They reveal
Only two search-lights of steel
Steadily sweeping the skies.
And we hoped he had peace in his lair
Where the bones of old tyrannies lay,
And the skulls that his cubs have stripped bare,
The old skulls they still toss in their play.
[125] But the tyrants are risen again,
And the last light dies from their path ”