Alfred Noyes

I.

There is one road, one only, to the Light:
    A narrow way, but Freedom walks therein;
A straight, firm road through Chaos and old Night,
    And all these wandering Jack-o-Lents of Sin.

It is the road of Law, where Pilate stays
    To hear, at last, the answer to his cry;
And mighty sages, groping through their maze
    Of eager questions, hear a child reply.

Truth? What is Truth? Come, look upon my tables.
    Begin at your beginnings once again.
Twice one is two! Though all the rest be fables,
    Here's one poor glimpse of Truth to keep you sane.

For Truth, at first, is clean accord with fact,
Whether in line or thought, or word, or act.


II.

Then, by those first, those clean, precise, accords,

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.

(1917)


You that have gathered together the sons of all races,
    And welded them into one,
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?

How should he sing when the Spirit of Freedom in thunder
    Speaks, and the wine-press is red;
And the sea-winds are loud with the chains that are broken asunder
    ...

How should we praise those lads of the old Vindictive
    Who looked Death straight in the eyes,
        Till his gaze fell,
        In those red gates of hell?

England, in her proud history, proudly enrolls them,
    And the deep night in her remembering skies
        With purer glory
        Shall blazon their grim story.

There were no throngs to applaud that hushed adventure.
    They were one to a thousand on that fierce emprise.
        The shores they sought
        Were armoured, past all thought.

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 remembe...

I.

Black-veiled, black-gowned, she rides in bus and train,
    With eyes that fill too listlessly for tears.
Her waxen hands clasp and unclasp again.
    Good News, they cry. She neither sees nor hears.

Good News, perhaps, may crown some far-off king.
    Good News may peal the glory of the state--
Good News may cause the courts of heaven to ring.
    She sees a hand waved at a garden gate.

For her dull ears are tuned to other themes;
    And her dim eyes can never see aright.
She glides--a ghost--through all her April dreams,
    To meet his eyes at dawn, his lips at night.

Wraiths of a truth that others never knew;
And yet--for her--the only truth that's true.


II.

Good News! Good News! There is no way b...

(What the Ghosts Said)


And after all the labour and the pains,
    After the heaping up of gold on gold,
After success that locked your feet in chains,
    And left you with a heart so tired and old,

Strange--is it not?--to find your chief desire
    Is what you might have had for nothing then--
The face of love beside a cottage fire
    And friendly laughter with your fellow-men?

You were so rich when fools esteemed you poor.
    You ruled a field that kings could never buy;
The glory of the sea was at your door;
    And all those quiet stars were in your sky.

The nook of ferns below the breathless wood
    Where one poor book could unlock Paradise ...
What will you give us now for that lost good?
    Better forget. You ca...

Last night I rode with Touchstone on a bus
From Ludgate Hill to World's End. It was he!
Despite the broadcloth and the bowler hat,
I knew him, Touchstone, the wild flower of folly,
The whetstone of his age, the scourge of kings,
The madcap morning star of elfin-land,
Who used to wrap his legs around his neck
For warmth on winter nights. He had slipped back,
To see what men were doing in a world
That should be wiser. He had watched a play,
Read several books, heard men discourse of art
And life; and he sat bubbling like a spring
In Arden. Never did blackbird, drenched with may,
Chuckle as Touchstone chuckled on that ride.
Lord, what a world! Lord, what a mad, mad world!
Then, to the jolt and jingle of the engine,
He burst into this bunch of madcap rhymes...

(Written after the British Service at Trinity Church, New York)


I.

Before those golden altar-lights we stood,
    Each one of us remembering his own dead.
A more than earthly beauty seemed to brood
    On that hushed throng, and bless each bending head.

Beautiful on that gold, the deep-sea blue
    Of those young seamen, ranked on either side,
Blent with the khaki, while the silence grew
    Deep, as for wings--Oh, deep as England's pride.

Beautiful on that gold, two banners rose--
    Two flags that told how Freedom's realm was made,
One fair with stars of hope, and one that shows
    The glorious cross of England's long crusade;

Two flags, now joined, till that high will be done
Which sent them forth to make the whole world one...

(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,
<...

Was it a dream?--that crowded concert-room
In Bath; that sea of ruffles and laced coats;
And William Herschel, in his powdered wig,
Waiting upon the platform, to conduct
His choir and Linley's orchestra? He stood
Tapping his music-rest, lost in his own thoughts
And (did I hear or dream them?) all were mine:

My periwig's askew, my ruffle stained
With grease from my new telescope!
                    Ach, to-morrow
How Caroline will be vexed, although she grows
Almost as bad as I, who cannot leave
My work-shop for one evening.
            I must give
One last recital at St. Margaret's,
And then--farewell to music.
        Who can lead
Two lives at once?
            Yet--it has taught me much,
Thrown curious lights upon our world, to p...

Now to those who search the deep,
    Gleam of Hope and Kindly Light,
Once, before you turn to sleep,
    Breathe a message through the night.
Never doubt that they'll receive it.
Send it, once, and you'll believe it.

Wrecks that burn against the stars,
    Decks where death is wallowing green,
Snare the breath among their spars,
    Hear the flickering threads between,
Quick, through all the storms that blind them,
Quick with words that rush to find them.

Think you these aërial wires
    Whisper more than spirits may?
Think you that our strong desires
    Touch no distance when we pray?
Think you that no wings are flying
'Twixt the living and the dying?

Inland, here, upon your knees,
    You shall breathe from ur...