Alfred Noyes

(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...

O what is that whimpering there in the darkness?
    "Let him lie in my arms. He is breathing, I know.
Look. I'll wrap all my hair round his neck."--"The sea's rising,
    The boat must be lightened. He's dead. He must go."

See--quick--by that flash, where the bitter foam tosses,
    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.
See, I'm wrapping my hair all around him to warm him"----
    --"No. We can't keep the dead, dear. Come, loosen your hold.

"Come. Loosen your fingers."--"O God, let me keep him!"
   ...

(After a glimpse of a certain monument in New York, during the Victory Celebration)


The thousand-windowed towers were all alight.
    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;
    For Freedom rose in that august array,
Crowned with the stars and weaponed for the right.

Then, in a place of whispering leaves and gloom,
    I saw, too dark, too dumb for bronze or stone,
    One tragic head that bowed against the sky;
O, in a hush too deep for any tomb
    I saw Beethoven, dreadfully alone
        With his own grief, and his own majesty.

They are buffeting out in the bitter grey weather,
    Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!
Sea-lark singing to Golden Feather,
    And burly blue waters all swelling aroun'.
There's Thunderstone butting ahead as they wallow,
    With death in the mesh of their deep-sea trawl;
There's Night-Hawk swooping by wild Sea-swallow;
    And old Cap'n Storm-along leading 'em all.

    Bashing the seas to a welter of white,
    Look at the fleet that he leads to the fight.
    O, they're dancing like witches to open the ball;
    And old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of 'em all.

Now, where have you seen such a bully old sailor?
    His eyes are as blue as the scarf at his throat;
And he rolls on the bridge of his br...

Not with a flash that rends the blue
    Shall fall the avenging sword.
Gently as the evening dew
    Descends the mighty Lord.

His dreadful balances are made
    To move with moon and tide;
Yet shall not mercy be afraid
    Nor justice be denied.

The dreams that seemed to waste away,
    The kindliness forgot,
Were singing in your heart today
    Although you knew them not.

The sun shall not forget his road,
    Nor the high stars their rhyme,
The traveller with the heavier load
    Has one less hill to climb.

And, though a darker shadow fall
    On every struggling age,
How shall it be if, after all,
    He share our pilgrimage?

The end we mourn is not the end.
    The dust has nimble wings.
But tru...

The neighbours gossiped idly at the door.
Copernicus lay dying overhead.
His little throng of friends, with startled eyes,
Whispered together, in that dark house of dreams,
From which by one dim crevice in the wall
He used to watch the stars.
        "His book has come
From Nuremberg at last; but who would dare
To let him see it now?"--
                            "They have altered it!
Though Rome approved in full, this preface, look,
Declares that his discoveries are a dream!"--
"He has asked a thousand times if it has come;
Could we tear out those pages?"--
                    "He'd suspect."--
"What shall be done, then?"--
            "Hold it back awhile.
That was the priest's voice in the room above.
He may forget it. Those last sacraments

Shun the brush and shun the pen,
Shun the ways of clever men,
When they prove that black is white,
Whey they swear that wrong is right,
When they roast the singing stars
Like chestnuts, in between the bars,
    Children, let a wandering fool
    Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.

When you see a clever man
Run as quickly as you can.
You must never, never, never
Think that Socrates was clever.
The cleverest thing I ever knew
Now cracks walnuts at the Zoo.
    Children, let a wandering fool
    Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.

Homer could not scintillate.
Milton, too, was merely great.
That's a very different matter
From talking like a frantic hatter.
Keats and Shelley had no tricks.
Wordsworth never climbed up s...

There came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn,
    One dark May night,
Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din,
    With quaint delight,
It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do,
    A phantom strain:
Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
    And look in vain.

In that old wood, where ghosts of lovers walk,
    At fall of day,
Gleaning such fragments of their ancient talk
    As poor ghosts may,
From leaves that brushed their faces, wet with dew,
    Or tears, or rain,...
Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
    And look in vain.

Have we not seen them--pale forgotten shades
    That do return,
Groping for those dim paths, those fragrant glades,
    Those nooks of fern,
Only to find that, of the may ...

I.

Steadfast as any soldier of the line
    He served his England, with the imminent death
Poised at his heart. Nor could the world divine
    The constant peril of each burdened breath.

England, and the honour of England, he still served
    Walking the strict path, with the old high pride
Of those invincible knights who never swerved
    One hair's breadth from the way until they died.

Quietness he loved, and books, and the grave beauty
    Of England's Helicon, whose eternal light
Shines like a lantern on that road of duty,
    Discerned by few in this chaotic night.

And his own pen, foretelling his release,
Told us that he foreknew "the end was peace."


II.

Soldier of England, he shall live unsleeping
    Among...

Fashion on fashion on fashion,
    (With only the truth growing old!)
And here's the new purple of passion,
    (And love waiting out in the cold)
            Who'll buy?

They are crying new lamps for Aladdin,
    New worlds for the old and the true;
And no one remembers the story
    The magic was not in the new.

They are crying a new rose for Eden,
    A rose of green glass. I suppose
The only thing wrong with their rose is
    The fact that it isn't a rose.
            Who'll buy?

And here is a song without metre;
    And, here again, nothing is wrong;
(For nothing on earth could be neater)
    Except that--it isn't a song.

Well. Walk on your hands. It's the latest!
    And feet are Victorian now;
And even ...

Long, long ago He said,
He who could wake the dead,
    And walk upon the sea--
    "Come, follow Me.

"Leave your brown nets and bring
Only your hearts to sing,
    Only your souls to pray,
    Rise, come away.

"Shake out your spirit-sails,
And brave those wilder gales,
    And I will make you then
    Fishers of men."

Was this, then, what He meant?
Was this His high intent,
    After two thousand years
    Of blood and tears?

God help us, if we fight
For right, and not for might.
    God help us if we seek
    To shield the weak.

Then, though His heaven be far
From this blind welter of war,
    He'll bless us, on the sea
    From Calvary.

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 po...

(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!...

(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"?

(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 ...

(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...

"There are no ghosts in America."


There are no ghosts, you say,
    To haunt her blaze of light;
No shadows in her day,
    No phantoms in her night.
Columbus' tattered sail
Has passed beyond our hail.

What? On that magic coast,
    Where Raleigh fought with fate,
Or where that Devon ghost
    Unbarred the Golden Gate,
No dark, strange, ear-ringed men
Beat in from sea again?

No ghosts in Salem town
    With silver buckled shoon?
No lovely witch to drown
    Or burn beneath the moon?
Not even a whiff of tea,
On Boston's glimmering quay.

O, ghostly Spanish walls,
    Where brown Franciscans glide,
Is there no voice that calls
    Across the Great Divide,
To pilgrims on their way
Along t...

Now, in a breath, we'll burst those gates of gold,
    And ransack heaven before our moment fails.
Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old,
    We'll mount and sing and spread immortal sails.

It is not time that makes eternity.
    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.