The Open Door

O Mystery of life,
That, after all our strife,
Defeats, mistakes,
Just as, at last, we see
The road to victory,
The tired heart breaks.

Just as the long years give
Knowledge of how to live,
Life's end draws near;
As if, that gift being ours,
God needed our new powers
In worlds elsewhere.

There, if the soul whose wings
Were won in suffering, springs
To life anew,
Justice would have some room
For hope beyond the tomb,
And mercy, too.

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poem by Alfred Noyes
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Shadows on the Down

When daffodils danced in Chuck Hatch, and white clouds
Drew their own shadowy purple across the hills,
Darkening the valley where the small flint church
The Saxon built stood roofless to the sun,
Believe me, Memory, it was not a shadow!
No shadow of a cloud you saw that day
Flowing across the smooth deep-breasted downs,
But something darker, sweeter,--the wild thyme
Of Sussex, flowing like a river of joy
That tossed a hundred skylarks up.
                & nbsp;       &n bsp;       &nb sp;       &nbs p;         ;  No shadow,
Believe me, Memory, but the purple thyme
Flowing by windmill and by wattled fold
On to the white chalk coast and sparkling sea.

poem by Alfred Noyes
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An Open Boat

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!' -

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poem by Alfred Noyes
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To A Successful Man

(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 whisper 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 cannot pay the price.

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poem by Alfred Noyes
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Epilogue

Carol, every violet has
Heaven for a looking-glass!

Every little valley lies
Under many-clouded skies;
Every little cottage stands
Girt about with boundless lands.
Every little glimmering pond
Claims the mighty shores beyond—
Shores no seamen ever hailed,
Seas no ship has ever sailed.

All the shores when day is done
Fade into the setting sun,
So the story tries to teach
More than can be told in speech.

Beauty is a fading flower,
Truth is but a wizard's tower,
Where a solemn death-bell tolls,

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poem by Alfred Noyes
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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,

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poem by Alfred Noyes
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Unity

I.

Heart of my heart, the world is young;
Love lies hidden in every rose!
Every song that the skylark sung
Once, we thought, must come to a close:
Now we know the spirit of song,
Song that is merged in the chant of the whole,
Hand in hand as we wander along,
What should we doubt of the years that roll?

II.

Heart of my heart, we cannot die!
Love triumphant in flower and tree,
Every life that laughs at the sky
Tells us nothing can cease to be:
One, we are one with the song to-day,
One with the clover that scents the world,
One with the Unknown, far away,

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poem by Alfred Noyes
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The Trumpet Call

Trumpeter, sound for the last Crusade!
Sound for the fire of the red-cross kings,
Sound for the passion, the splendour, the pity
That swept the world for a dead Man's sake,
Sound, till the answering trumpet rings
Clear from the heights of the holy City,
Sound till the lions of England awake,
Sound for the tomb that our lives have betrayed;
O'er broken shrine and abandoned wall,
Trumpeter, sound the great recall,
Trumpeter, rally us, rally us, rally us;
Sound for the last Crusade!

Trumpeter, sound for the splendour of God!
Sound the music whose name is law,
Whose service is perfect freedom still,
The order august that rules the stars.
Bid the anarchs of night withdraw,
Too long the destroyers have worked their will,
Sound for the last, the last of the wars.

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poem by Alfred Noyes
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A Prayer in Time of War

The war will change many things in art and life, and among them, it is to be hoped, many of our own ideas as to what is, and what is not, "intellectual."

Thou, whose deep ways are in the sea,
Whose footsteps are not known,
To-night a world that turned from Thee
Is waiting -- at Thy Throne.

The towering Babels that we raised
Where scoffing sophists brawl,
The little Antichrists we praised --
The night is on them all.

The fool hath said . . . The fool hath said . ..
And we, who deemed him wise,
We who believed that Thou wast dead,
How should we seek Thine eyes?

How should we seek to Thee for power
Who scorned Thee yesterday?
How should we kneel, in this dread hour?

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poem by Alfred Noyes
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Wireless.

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 worlds that rush to find them.

Think you those aerial wires
Whisper more than spirits may ?

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poem by Alfred Noyes
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