Alfred Noyes Poems

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

Every little valley lies
Under many-clouded skies;
...

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,
...

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

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;
...

Fashion on fashion on fashion,
(With only the truth growing old!)
And here's the new purple of passion,
...

STEADFAST as any soldier of the line
He served his England, with the imminent death
Poised at his heart. Nor could the world divine
...

O Mystery of life,
That, after all our strife,
Defeats, mistakes,
Just as, at last, we see
...

I
Music of the star-shine shimmering o’er the sea
Mirror me no longer in the dusk of memory:
Dim and white the rose-leaves drift along the shore
...

They are buffeting out in the bitter grey weather,

-Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!-
...

It is not over yet-the fight
Where those immortal dreamers failed.
They stormed the citadels of night,
And the night praised them-and prevailed.
...