ALFRED NOYES   (1880-1959)

Alzuna
A Song of Sherwood
Shadow-of-a-Leaf
The Young Friar
The Island Hawk
The Bell
The Elfin Artist
The Loom of Years
The Highwayman
 
ALZUNA

The forest of Alzuna hides a pool.
     Beside that pool, a shadowy tree up-towers.
High on that tree, a bough most beautiful
     Bends with the fragrant burden of its flowers.
Among those flowers a nest is buried deep.
     Warm in that nest, there lies a freckled shell.
Packed in that shell, a bird is fast asleep.
     This is the incantation and the spell.

For, when the north wind blows, the bird will cry,
     "Warm in my freckled shell, I lie asleep.
The freckled shell is in the nest on high.
     The nest among the flowers is buried deep.
The flowers are on a bough most beautiful.
     The bough is on a tree no axe can fell.
The sky is at its feet in yonder pool.
     This is the incantation and the spell!"
 
A SONG OF SHERWOOD

Sherwood in the twilight, is Robin Hood awake?
Grey and ghostly shadows are gliding through the brake,
Shadows of the dappled deer, dreaming of the morn,
Dreaming of a shadowy man that winds a shadowy horn.

Robin Hood is here again: all his merry thieves
Hear a ghostly bugle-note shivering through the leaves,
Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

All the gnarled old thorn-trees are blossom-white for June.
All the elves that Marian knew were here beneath the moon –
Younger than the wild thyme, older than the trees,
Lob and Mab and Bramblescratch, on their unbridled bees.

Oaken-hearted England is waking as of old,
With eyes of blither hazel and hair of brighter gold:
For Robin Hood is here again beneath the bursting spray
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Love is in the greenwood building him a house
Of wild rose and hawthorn and honeysuckle boughs:
Love is in the greenwood, dawn is in the skies,
And Marian is waiting with her laughter-loving eyes.

Hark! The dazzled laverock climbs the golden steep!
Marian is waiting: is Robin Hood asleep?
Where the last dark arrow fell, the white scuts flash away,
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Oberon, Oberon, the hazel copses ring,
Time to hush the night-jar and let the throstle sing,
Time to let the blackbird lift a bonny head,
And wake Will Scarlett from his leafy forest bed.

Friar Tuck and Little John are riding down together
With quarter-staff and drinking-can and grey goose feather.
The dead are coming back again, the years are rolled away
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Softly over Sherwood the south wind blows.
All the heart of England hid in every rose
Hears across the greenwood the sunny whisper leap,
Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?

Hark, the voice of England wakes him as of old
And, shattering the silence with a cry of brighter gold,
Bugles in the greenwood echo from the steep,
Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?

Where the deer are gliding, down the shadowy glen,
All across the glades of fern he calls his merry men –
Doublets of the Lincoln green glancing through the may
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day –

Calls them and they answer: from aisles of oak and ash
Rings the Follow! Follow! and the boughs begin to crash,
The ferns begin to flutter and the flowers begin to fly,
And through the crimson dawning the robber band goes by.

Robin! Robin! Robin! All his merry thieves
Answer as the bugle-note shivers through the leaves,
Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.
 
SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF

Elf-blooded creature, little did he reck
     Of this blind world's delights,
Content to wreathe his legs around his neck
     For warmth on winter nights;
Content to ramble away
Through his deep woods in May;
     Content, alone with Pan, to observe his forest rites.

Or, cutting a dark cross of beauty there
     All out of a hawthorn-tree,
He'd set it up, and whistle to praise and prayer,
     Field-mouse and finch and bee;
And, as the woods grew dim
Brown squirrels knelt with him,
     Paws to blunt nose, and prayed as well as he.

For, all his wits being lost, he was more wise
     Than aught on earthly ground.
Like haunted woodland pools his great dark eyes
     Where the lost stars were drowned,
Saw things afar and near.
'Twas said that he could hear
     The music of the spheres which had no sound.

And so, through many an age and many a clime,
     He strayed on unseen wings;
For he was fey, and knew not space or time,
     Kingdoms or earthly kings.
Clear as a crystal ball
One dew-drop showed him all, –
     Earth and its tribes, and strange translunar things.

But to the world's one May, he made in chief
     His lonely woodland vow,
Praying – as none could pray but Shadow-of-a-Leaf,
     Under that fresh-cut bough
Which with two branches grew,
Dark, dark, in sun and dew, –
     "The world goes maying. Be this my maypole now!

"Make me a garland, Lady, in thy green aisles
     For this wild rood of may,
And I will make thee another of tears and smiles
     To match thine own, this day.
For every rose thereof
A rose of my heart's love,
     A blood-red rose that shall not waste away.

"For every violet here, a gentle thought
     To worship at thine eyes;
But, most of all, for wildings few have sought,
     And careless looks despise,
For ragged-robins' birth
Here, in a ditch of earth,
     A tangle of sweet prayers to thy pure skies."

Bird, squirrel, bee, and the thing that was like no other
     Played in the woods that day,
Talked in the heart of the woods, as brother to brother,
     And prayed as children pray, –
Make me a garland, Lady, a garland, Mother,
     For this wild rood of may.
 
THE YOUNG FRIAR

When leaves broke out on the wild briar,
     And bells for matins rung,
Sorrow came to the old friar
     – Hundreds of years ago it was! –
And May came to the young.

The old was ripening for the sky,
     The young was twenty-four.
The Franklin's daughter passed him by,
     Reading a painted missal-book,
Beside the chapel door.

With brown cassock and sandalled feet,
     And red Spring wine for blood;
The very next noon he chanced to meet
     The Franklin's daughter, in a green May twilight,
Walking through the wood.

Pax vobiscum – to a maid
     The crosiered ferns among!
But hers was only the Saxon,
     And his the Norman tongue;
And the Latin taught by the old friar
     Made music for the young.

And never a better deed was done
     By Mother Church below
Than when she made old England one,
     – Hundreds of years ago it was! –
Hundreds of years ago.

Rich was the painted page they read
     Before that sunset died;
Nut-brown hood by golden head,
     Murmuring Rosa Mystica,
While nesting thrushes cried.

A Saxon maid with flaxen hair,
     And eyes of Sussex grey;
A young monk out of Normandy: –
     "May is our Lady's month," he said,
"And O, my love, my May!"

Then over the fallen missal-book
     The missel-thrushes sung
Till – Domus Aurea – rose the moon
     And bells for vespers rung.
It was gold and blue for the old friar,
     But hawthorn for the young.

For gown of green and brown hood,
     Before that curfew tolled,
Had flown for ever through the wood
     – Hundreds of years ago it was! –
But twenty summers old.

And empty stood his chapel stall,
     Empty his thin grey cell,
Empty her seat in the Franklin's hall;
     And there were swords that searched for them
Before the matin bell.

And, crowders tell, a sword that night
     Wrought them an evil turn,
And that the may was not more white
     Than those white bones the robin found
Among the roots of fern.

But others tell of stranger things
     Half-heard on Whitsun eves,
Of sweet and ghostly whisperings –
     Though hundreds of years ago it was –
Among the ghostly leaves: –

         Sero te amavi –
             Grey eyes of sun-lit dew! –
         Tam antiqua, tam nova –
             Augustine heard it, too.
         Late have I loved that May, Lady,
             So ancient, and so new!

And no man knows where they were flown,
     For the wind takes the may:
But white and fresh the may was blown
     – Though hundreds of years ago it was –
As this that blooms to-day.

And the leaves break out on the wild briar,
     And bells must still be rung;
But sorrow comes to the old friar,
     For he remembers a May, a May,
When his old heart was young.
 
THE ISLAND HAWK

Hushed are the whimpering winds on the hill,
     Dumb is the shrinking plain,
And the songs that enchanted the woods are still
     As I shoot to the skies again!
Does the blood grow black on my fierce bent beak,
     Does the down still cling to my claw?
Who brightened these eyes for the prey they seek?
     Life, I follow thy law!
             For I am the hawk, the hawk, the hawk!
                  Who knoweth my pitiless breast?
             Who watcheth me sway in the wild wind's way?
                 Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.

As I glide and glide with my peering head,
     Or swerve at a puff of smoke,
Who watcheth my wings on the wind outspread,
     Here – gone – with an instant stroke?
Who toucheth the glory of life I feel
     As I buffet this great glad gale,
Spire and spire to the cloud-world, wheel,
     Loosen my wings and sail?
             For I am the hawk, the island hawk,
                 Who knoweth my pitiless breast?
             Who watcheth me sway in the sun's bright way?
                 Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.

My mate in the nest on the high bright tree
     Blazing with dawn and dew,
She knoweth the gleam of the world and the glee
     As I drop like a bolt from the blue.
She knoweth the fire of the level flight
     As I skim, close, close to the ground,
With the long grass lashing my breast and the bright
     Dew-drops flashing around.
             She watcheth the hawk, the hawk, the hawk
                 (Oh, the red-blotched eggs in the nest!)
             Watcheth him sway in the sun's bright way.
                 Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.

She builded her nest on the high bright wold,
     She was taught in a world afar
The lore that is only an April old
     Yet old as the evening star.
Life of a far off ancient day
     In an hour unhooded her eyes.
In the time of the budding of one green spray
     She was wise as the stars are wise.
             An eyas in eyry, a yellow-eyed hawk,
                 On the old elm's burgeoning breast,
             She watcheth me sway in the wild wind's way.
                 Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.

She hath ridden on white Arabian steeds
     Thro' the ringing English dells,
For the joy of a great queen, hunting in state,
     To the music of golden bells.
A queen's fair fingers have drawn the hood
     And tossed her aloft in the blue,
A white hand eager for needless blood.
     I hunt for the needs of two.
             A haggard in yarak, a hawk, a hawk!
                 Who knoweth my pitiless breast?
             Who watcheth me sway in the sun's bright way?
                 Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.

Who fashioned her wide and splendid eyes
     That have stared in the eyes of kings?
With a silken twist she was looped to their wrist:
     She has clawed at their jewelled rings!
Who flung her first thro' the crimson dawn
     To pluck him a prey from the skies,
When the love-light shone upon lake and lawn
     In the valleys of Paradise?
             Who fashioned the hawk, the hawk, the hawk,
                 Bent beak and pitiless breast?
             Who watcheth him sway in the wild wind's way?
                 Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.

Is there ever a song in all the world
     Shall say how the quest began
With the beak and the wings that have made us kings
     And cruel – almost – as man?
The wild wind whimpers across the heath
     Where the sad little tufts of blue
And the red-stained grey little feathers of death
     Flutter! Who fashioned us? Who?
             Who fashioned the scimitar wings of the hawk,
                 Bent beak and arrowy breast?
             Who watcheth him sway in the sun's bright way?
                 Flee – flee – for I quest, I quest.
 
THE BELL

The Temple Bell was out of tune,
That once out-melodied sun and moon.

Instead of calling folk to prayer
It spread an evil in the air.

Instead of a song, from north to south,
It put a lie in the wind's mouth.

The very palms beneath it died,
So harsh it jarred, so loud it lied.

Then the gods told the blue-robed bonze:
"Your Bell is only wrought of bronze.

"Lower it down, cast it again.
Or you shall shake the heavens in vain."

Then, as the mighty cauldron hissed,
Men brought the wealth that no man missed.

Yea, they brought silver, they brought gold,
And melted them into the seething mould.

The miser brought his greening hoard,
And the king cast in his sword.

Yet, when the Bell in the Temple swung,
It jarred the stars with its harsh tongue.

"Is this your best?" the oracle said,
"Then were you better drunk or dead."

Once again they melted it down,
And the king cast in his crown.

Then they poured wine, and bullock's blood,
Into the hot, grey, seething flood.

They gave it mellowing fruits to eat,
And honey-combs to make it sweet.

Yet, when they hauled it to the sky,
The Bell was one star-shattering lie.

So, for the third time and the last,
They lowered it down to be re-cast.

The white-hot metal seethed anew,
And the crowd shrank as the heat grew;

But a white-robed woman, queenly and tall,
Pressed to the brink before them all,

One breast, like a golden fruit lay bare;
She held her small son feeding there.

She plucked him off, she lifted him high,
Like rose-red fruit on the blue sky.

She pressed her lips to the budded feet,
And murmured softly, "Oh, sweet, my sweet."

She whispered, "Gods, that my land may live,
I give the best that I have to give!"

Then, then, before the throng awoke,
Before one cry from their white lips broke,

She tossed him into the fiery flood,
Her child, her baby, her flesh and blood.

And the crisp hissing waves closed round
And melted him through without a sound.

"Too quick for pain," they heard her say,
And she sobbed, once, and she turned away.
        *    *    *    *    *    *    *    
The Temple Bell, in peace and war,
Keeps the measure of sun and star.

But sometimes, in the night it cries
Faintly, and a voice replies:

Mother, Oh, mother, the Bell rings true! –
     You were all that I had! – Oh, mother, my mother! –
With the land and the Bell it is well. It is well,
     Is it well with the heart that had you and none other?
 
THE ELFIN ARTIST

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 that 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 he 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.
 
THE LOOM OF YEARS

In the light of the silent stars that shine on the struggling sea,
In the weary cry of the wind and the whisper of flower and tree,
Under the breath of laughter, deep in the tide of tears,
I hear the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.

The leaves of the winter wither and sink in the forest mould
To colour the flowers of April with purple and white and gold:
Light and scent and music die and are born again
In the heart of a grey-haired woman who wakes in a world of pain.

The hound, the fawn, and the hawk, and the doves that croon and coo,
We are all one woof of the weaving and the one warp threads us through,
One flying cloud on the shuttle that carries our hopes and fears
As it goes thro' the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.

The crosiers of the fern, and the crown, the crown of the rose,
Pass with our hearts to the Silence where the wings of music close,
Pass and pass to the Timeless that never a moment mars,
Pass and pass to the Darkness that made the suns and stars.

Has the soul gone out in the Darkness? Is the dust sealed from sight?
Ah, hush, for the woof of the ages returns thro' the warp of the night!
Never that shuttle loses one thread of our hopes and fears,
As it comes thro' the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.

O, woven in one wide Loom thro' the throbbing weft of the whole,
One in spirit and flesh, one in body and soul,
The leaf on the winds of autumn, the bird in its hour to die,
The heart in its muffled anguish, the sea in its mournful cry,

One with the flower of a day, one with the withered moon,
One with the granite mountains that melt into the noon,
One with the dream that triumphs beyond the light of the spheres,
We come from the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.
 
THE HIGHWAYMAN

                                 I.

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding –
                 Riding – riding –
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
                 His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
                 Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
                 The landlord's red-lipped daughter;
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say –

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
                 Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."

He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
                 (Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

                                 II.

He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gipsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching –
                 Marching – marching –
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
                 And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her. She heard the dead man say –
Look for me by moonlight;
                 Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
                 Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
                 Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain.

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
                 Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!

Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
                 Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him – with her death.

He turned; he spurred to the west; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
                 The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat;
When they shot him down on the highway,
                 Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
         *    *    *    *    *    *    *    
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding –
                 Riding – riding –
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
                 Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.