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Alfred Noyes
Alfred Noyes (1880 - 1958 / Wolverhamton / England)
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Alfred Noyes was the son of Alfred and Amelia Adams Noyes. He was born on the 16th of September in the year 1880 in the town of Wolverhamton, England .. more >>
21 poems of Alfred Noyes
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The Elfin Artist

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  In a glade of an elfin forest
When Sussex was Eden-new,
I came on an elvish painter
And watched as his picture grew,
A harebell nodded beside him.
He dipt his brush in the dew.

And it might be the wild thyme round him
That shone in the dark strange ring;
But his brushes were bees' antennae,
His knife was a wasp's blue sting;
And his gorgeous exquisite palette
Was a butterfly's fan-shaped wing.

And he mingled its powdery colours,
And painted the lights that pass,
On a delicate cobweb canvas
That gleamed like a magic glass,
And bloomed like a banner of elf-land,
Between two stalks of grass;

Till it shone like an angel's feather
With sky-born opal and rose,
And gold from the foot of the rainbow,
And colours that no man knows;
And I laughed in the sweet May weather,
Because of the themes he chose.

For he painted the things that matter,
The tints that we all pass by,
Like the little blue wreaths of incense
That the wild thyme breathes to the sky;
Or the first white bud of the hawthorn,
And the light in a blackbird's eye;

And the shadows on soft white cloud-peaks
That carolling skylarks throw,--
Dark dots on the slumbering splendours
That under the wild wings flow,
Wee shadows like violets trembling
On the unseen breasts of snow;

With petals too lovely for colour
That shake to the rapturous wings,
And grow as the bird draws near them,
And die as he mounts and sings,--
Ah, only those exquisite brushes
Could paint these marvellous things.

Alfred Noyes


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  Havilah Howard  (11/29/2004 11:32:00 AM)

This is a poem I would like to share with my little brother and sister because it has a childs fairy tale quality to it. Every Christmas, my family has friends over and everyone has to share a talent. I am the only one who cannot sing or play an instrument, so generally I recite a poem. Perhaps it will be this poem this year.
 
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