>o^7i 
 
 Ot) 
 
 CD 
 O 
 
 
 ^^?^^^' 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013644012 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 6027.O98Z3 
 
 Alfred Noyes, the young English poet, cal 
 
 3 1924 013 644 012 
 
ALFRED NOYES 
 
 The Young English Poet, 
 Called the Greatest Living 
 by Distinguished Critics. 
 
 NOYES, THE MAN AND POET 
 
 By Clayton Hamilton 
 
 WHAT ALFI^ED NOYES BELIEVES 
 
 By Montrose J. Moses 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM HIS WORK 
 
 Mr. Noyes is now by far the most 
 popular poet in England, and his 
 American visit has been a succession 
 of triumphs. He is one of the 
 few poets who is at the same time 
 popular and critically approved. 
 
A -^.sw^ 
 
 ALFRED NOYES 
 
 NOTE — The poems in this pamphlet are copyrighted by Frederick A. 
 Stokes Company, 443-449 Fourth Ave., New York, and may not be copied 
 without permission. 
 
 Copyright, 1913, by Frederick A. Stokfs Compavy 
 
Alfred Noyes the Man and Poet 
 
 His History, and a Visit to His Home 
 By CLAYTON HAMILTON 
 
 (Reprinted from The Book Neivt Monthly) 
 
 MR. ALFRED NOYES, who makes his first visit to America 
 this spring, is regarded by many critics as the most con- 
 siderable English poet that has arisen since the death of Tennyson. 
 Swinburne, the last of the great Victorians^ hailed him as the 
 her9,ld of a new poetic day; and this hig)i opinion of his talents has 
 been supported by Edmund Gosse, Theodore Watts-Dunton and 
 Rudyard Kipling. But it is not only among the literary elect that 
 the work of Mr. Noyes has won esteem; he is also, far and away, 
 the most popular poet writing in England at the present time. 
 
 A Poet Who Makes His Living by His Art 
 
 Mr. Noyes is only thirty-two years old. He was born on 
 September 16, 1880. During his undergraduate days at Oxford, he 
 was noted mainly as an athlete, and rowed for three years in his 
 college eight; but while he was still in residence at Exeter College, 
 his first poem was published in the weekly edition of the London 
 Times. Upon his graduation, Mr. Noyes determined not only to 
 dedicate his life to the pursuit of poetry, but also to earn his living 
 as he went along by writing verse and by no other means. The 
 first decision, for an aspiring youth, was simple enough; but the 
 second might have been regarded as hazardous. Yet Mr. Noyes 
 "has won his wager against destiny; and he considers as perhaps his 
 best accomplishment the fact that he has proved to the young men 
 of future generations that a poet can support himself solely by his 
 proper work, without dissipating his creative energy by undertaking 
 lesser tasks for hire. 
 
 In this accomplishment Mr. Noyes has been aided by a natural 
 fecundity. He writes with unusual rapidity and ease. He holds 
 himself to the welcome task day after day, week after week, month 
 after month, with the regularity of a business man who goes to his 
 office every morning. He does not deem it necessary to idle about 
 
ALFRED NOYES THE MAN AND POET 
 
 and wait for what his inferiors are fond of calling "inspiration." His 
 work, in consequence, is copious; and since he has not found it 
 difficult to maintain an even grade of excellence, his poems have 
 found a ready market in the leading English magazines. Most of 
 his longer pieces have been published serially in "Blackwood's." 
 
 The Healthy Spirit of Mr. Noyes 
 
 Mr. Noyes is thoroughly in love with life. He is productive 
 because he is healthy; and he is various because he is divinely 
 capable of being interested in a number of things. His healthiness 
 of spirit is a boon for which to thank the gods. Nothing is the 
 matter with his body or his soul. In this age of morbid introspec- 
 tion he never looks upon himself to curse his fate. He never 
 whines or whimpers: his sadness is the deep, great sadness of a 
 happy man. He religiously believes in being happy; and his 
 triumphal youthfulness is a glorious challenge to the sort of maun- 
 derers who are forever saying, "Ah ! but wait till you have sufiered ! " 
 His sense of tragedy is not morbid and lachrymose, but vigorous 
 and terrible. After all the meanings and the caterwaulings of the 
 sorry little singers, we have found at last a poet to whom this world 
 is not a twilit vale of tears, but a valley shimmering all dewy to the 
 dawn, with a lark song over it. 
 
 A Visit to His Home 
 
 Through a happy incident I happened to be one of the first 
 writers in America who enjoyed the privilege of welcoming the 
 work of this newcomer among English poets; and when next I 
 went to England, in the spring of 1910, he invited me to visit him 
 at his little home in Sussex. I took the train to Brighton, and 
 then motored for eight miles along the summit of the chalk clifis 
 that wall the Channel, until I reached the tiny town of Rottingdean. 
 This village lies in a gash of the great cliffs and scatters out land- 
 ward over the rolling downs. The inhabitants are mainly fishermen 
 and shepherds; but several years ago the hamlet was "discovered" 
 as a place of residence by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and it was sub- 
 sequently chosen as a dwelling-place for a few seasons by Mr. 
 Rudyard Kipling. 
 
SONG from "DRAKE" 
 
 The moon is up: the stars are bright: 
 
 The wind is fresh and free ! 
 We're out to seek for gold to-night 
 
 Across the silver sea ! 
 The world was growing grey and old : 
 
 Break out the sails again! 
 We're out to seek a Realm of Gold 
 
 Beyond the Spanish Main. 
 
 We're sick of all the cringing knees, 
 
 The courtly smiles and lies ! 
 God, let Thy singing Channel breeze 
 
 Lighten our hearts and eyes! 
 Let love no more be bought and sold 
 
 For earthly loss or gain : 
 We're out to seek an Age of Gold 
 
 Beyond the Spanish Main. 
 
 Beyond the light of far Cathay, 
 
 Beyond all mortal dreams. 
 Beyond the reach of night and day 
 
 Our Eldorado gleams. 
 Revealing — as the skies unfold — 
 
 A star without a stain. 
 The Glory of the Gates of Gold 
 
 Beyond the Spanish Main. 
 
ALFRED NOYES THE MAN AND POET 
 
 It was characteristic of Mr. Noyes that the very first thing we 
 did after my arrival was to take a swim. We began to be friends 
 about half a mile oflf shore, as we lunged along slowly through the 
 chalky water. My first glimpse of him was therefore in the mood 
 of his poem called "The Swimmer's Race." Mr. Noyes was at 
 that time twenty-nine; but he looked as if he were still in training 
 for the Exeter College eight. His beautiful, athletic body, his 
 wholesome and agreeable face, were more suggestive of the amiable 
 undergraduate than of the noted man of letters. When we had 
 Teturned to his house and were chatting in his cozy study on the 
 second floor, I noticed that the literary impression of the room, 
 conveyed by the accumulated books, was agreeably alleviated by the 
 presence of a couple of oars hung upon the wall, several photo- 
 graphs of college teams, and a number of athletic trophies. For 
 this aspect of the poet's study I might, indeed, have been prepared 
 by the fact that he had dedicated Drake, not to any of his literary 
 friends, but to the noted oarsman, Mr. Rudolph Chambers Lehman. 
 
 All that afternoon we roamed over the great downs, which 
 roll their treeless flanks to a high horizon. During the course of 
 our rambles we ran across a remarkable shepherd, with the good 
 old English name of Barrow, who remembers by rote many mediaeval 
 ballads which he learned from older shepherds in his boyhood and 
 which, doubtless, have been handed down by word of mouth from 
 one generation to another ever since the days of the Nut Brown 
 Maid. We led Barrow to a secluded nook and persuaded him to 
 recite for us several of these ballads; and, with evident delight, he 
 chanted the old verses in a solemn monotony of sing-song. Mr. 
 Kipling, as well as Mr. Noyes, has gathered inspiration for several 
 modern ballads from this quaint^ and eloquent shepherd of Rotting- 
 dean. 
 
 Why Mr. Noyes Came to America 
 
 It was while we were standing at the summit of a clifi and 
 looking out over the Channel that Mr. Noyes surprised me by 
 saying that he had never been out of the island of Great Britain; 
 he had never even crossed to France, which lay ever so little beyond 
 that near horizon. He had always wanted to travel, he confessed, 
 but he had never had the time; he had never been able or willing 
 
THE NEWSPAPER BOY 
 
 from "The Enchanted Island" 
 
 Elf of the City, a lean little hollow-eyed boy, 
 
 Ragged and tattered, but lithe as a slip of the Spring, 
 Under the lamp-light he runs with a restless joy. 
 
 Shouting a murderer's doom or the death of a King. 
 Out of the darkness he leaps like a wild strange hint, 
 
 Herald of tragedy, comedy, crime and despair. 
 Waving a poster that hurls you, in fierce black print. 
 
 One word. Mystery, under the lamp's white glare. 
 
 Elf of the night of the City, he darts with his crew 
 
 Out of vaporous furnace of color that wreathes 
 Magical letters a- flicker from crimson to blue 
 
 High overhead. All round him the mad world seethes. 
 Hansoms, like cantering beetles, with diamond-eyes 
 
 Run through the moons of it ; busses in yellow and red 
 Hoot; and St. Paul's is a bubble afloat in the skies. 
 
 Watching the pale moths flit and the dark death's head. 
 
 Ragged and tattered he scurries away in the gloom: 
 
 Over the thundering traffic a moment his cry 
 Mystery! Mystery! — reckless of death and doom 
 
 Rings; and the great wheels roll and the world goes by. 
 Lost, is it lost, that hollow-eyed flash of the light? — 
 
 Poor little face flying by with the word that saves. 
 Pale little mouth of the mask of the measureless night, 
 
 Shrilling the heart of it, lost Hke the foam on its waves! 
 
ALFRED NOYES THE MAN AND POET 
 
 to interrupt his work. It was then that I proposed that he should 
 come to America. This project appealed to him more and more as 
 we discussed it, for he had long desired to see America more than 
 any other country. He had two reasons for this feeling. The first 
 was personal; for his wife, who before her marriage was Miss 
 Garnett Daniels, is the daughter of an American military officer, 
 who served under General Grant in the Civil War, and was sub- 
 sequently sent to England as American consul at one of the impor- 
 tant coastwise ports. His other reason was a dream within his 
 mind. As Mr. Kipling has made himself a poet of war, so Mr. 
 Noyes has made himself a poet of peace. He is not interested in 
 Mr. Kipling's program of military imperialism; but he is greatly 
 interested in the idea of an imperialism of peace which he feels can 
 be imposed upon the worldj if only all the English-speaking peoples 
 will band themselves together in a spiritual empire. He feels that 
 America and England, if only they will work together, are large 
 enough and strong enough to hold the citadel of peace inviolate 
 forever. 
 
 The following lines bv Alfred Noyes have been engraved on 
 the tomb of the Anglo-African composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, 
 who died last September: 
 
 Sleep, crowned with fame, fearless of change or time. 
 
 Sleep, like remembered music in the soul, 
 Silent, immortal; while our discords climb 
 
 To that great chord which shall resolve the whole. 
 
 Silent, with Mozart on the solemn shore ; 
 
 Secure, where neither waves nor hearts can break; 
 Sleep, till the Master of the world once more 
 
 Touch the remembered strings and bid thee wake * 
 
 Touch the remembered strings and bid thee wake. 
 
What Great Critics Say of Alfred Noyes 
 
 EDMUND GOSSE wrote, after "The Enchanted Island" was 
 published: "The whole book is full of beauty and confirms me 
 in my belief that you are the leader among the English poets of 
 the last generation." 
 
 THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON writes: "To me, who believe 
 that the singing quality is the first quality of poetry, it seems 
 that you are right away (now that Swinburne is gone) the 
 first of our living poets." 
 
 W. L. COURTNEY, editor of The Fortnightly Review, wrote: 
 "Some of his single poems stand out, alike for strength and 
 grace, as the most conspicuous achievements of our age." 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING wrote after reading "Drake": "The tale 
 itself held me yesterday from one end to the other. ... I have 
 of course been following it in 'Blackwood's,' where I specially 
 liked the incidental songs and the verse-movements at the time 
 of the Armada's last welterings." 
 
 SWINBURNE wrote about "Drake": "Your noble and patriotic 
 and historic poem. I congratulate you on the completion of so 
 high and so grand a task." 
 
 BRIAN HOOKER, author of "Mona," said in reviewing "Drake," 
 for The Bookman: "The promise of English poetry centres to- 
 day in Alfred Noyes. He is proved a poet, not less; to be measured 
 against the giants, and judged by ultimate standards. He has 
 written an epic poem of seven thousand hues which one reads 
 eagerly, reluctant to lay it down; and which (m so far as contem- 
 porary perspective can decide) becomes a classic from its publica- 
 tion. To illustrate its worthiness would be to quote half the poem. ' ' 
 
 HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE wrote in an introduction to an 
 early volume: "No singer can refresh us in these days who can- 
 not bring from his pipe the sound which has set the feet of child- 
 hood flying in every generation; nor can any singer command our 
 thought to whom the deeper undertones of life are inaudible. 
 Many things might be said of the freshness of Mr. Noyes' use 
 of imagination, of his charming fancy, of his good luck with 
 phrase and epithet; but if he speaks to his generation with both 
 beguilement and authority, it will be because the heart of the 
 child and the mind of the man are in him." 
 
 PROF. C. B. TINKER of Yale, noted for his critical appreciation 
 of poetry, wrote: "I think the songs in 'Drake' are the best 
 poems since Tennyson." 
 
 SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE recently declared: "There 
 is more beauty in Alfred Noyes' verse play, 'The Forest of Wild 
 Thyme,' than there is in Maeterlinck's 'Blue Bird,' much 
 though I admire the latter." 
 
UNITY 
 
 from "The Enchanted Island" 
 
 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? 
 
 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 a song to-day. 
 
 One with the clover that scents the wold, 
 One with the Unknown, far away. 
 
 One with the stars, when earth grows old. 
 
 Heart of my heart, we are one with the wind. 
 
 One with the clouds that are whirled o'er the lea. 
 One in many, O broken and blind, 
 
 One as the waves are at one with the sea ! 
 Ay! when life seems scattered apart. 
 
 Darkens, ends as a tale that is told, 
 One, we are one, O heart of my heart. 
 
 One still one, while the world grows old. 
 
What Alfred Noyes Believes 
 
 His Views on Poetry, Religion, 
 Patriotism and Progress 
 
 An Interview by 
 
 MONTROSE J. MOSES 
 
 (Reprinted from The Neiu York Times) 
 
 WHEN I met the English poet, who has just come to America 
 to tell us something of peace and poetry, I found a young 
 college athlete in appearance, who possesses a wide-awake per- 
 sonality despite a certain dream quality in his eyes, which, by the 
 way, are light in color. In fact, there is something distinctly 
 Teutonic in the light hair and fair skin of Mr. Noyes. He gives 
 the impression of being a man as keenly aware of the sidewalk as 
 of the stars. He gave forth his views with the healthy gusto of a 
 boy enjoying life — that same optimistic attitude which dominates 
 his poetry — that same surprising and refreshing way of expressing 
 himself which is to be found in the technical variety of his verse. 
 
 The Mission of the Modern Poet 
 
 "There is a tremendous outburst of poetry in England at the 
 present time," he ventured, to a question of mine which brought 
 us to the point, "and there is no doubt that poetry is more in touch 
 with life than it ever was. This latter characteristic is largely due 
 to Kipling, for, while the recent writers of verse are not imitating 
 him, they are at least realizing from him that the spiritual, the 
 mythical, underlies even the material facts of life. 
 
 "Let me say right here that the modern atmosphere, which so 
 many critics deplore as deadening to the poetic spirit, is creating 
 a poetry which is broadening in proportion to the broadening of 
 modern life. 
 
 "There is no doubt, as others have so well expressed it, that 
 the specialist, who is distinctly a modern product, is losing his sense 
 of totality, and cannot view life as a whole, because of the minute- 
 ness of its parts. But a fundamental essential of good poetry is 
 
WHAT ALFRED NOYES BELIEVES 
 
 that it views life from the cosmic angle rather than from that of the 
 specialist. And when I say that the poet is more in touch with life . 
 than he ever was, I mean that he is bringing everything around 
 him into relation with the eternal. Was it not your poet, Herman 
 Hagedorn, who said: 'Give us our gods again'? That's what the 
 modern poet is doing, so it seems to me. All poetry should seek 
 the spiritual, but not consciously. 
 
 The Decadents Are Wrong 
 
 "Some of our decadent poets are in no way original; they are 
 imitative of a decadence which is greater than they. Simply be- 
 cause some of the great men of the past have lived disastrous lives 
 these lesser men believe that they should live disastrous lives also. 
 And is it not true that the minor man who rolls in the mud feels 
 that he can proclaim to the clouds that he has fallen from heaven? 
 
 "Have you not found in some of the recent verse," he asked, 
 "that the minor poet uses passion as though it were only to be 
 found in its lowest forms?" There was a smile more expressive 
 of tolerance than of spleen. "To such men, the seraph is not 
 credited with deep feeling; passion is bestowed only on the maggot. 
 
 "But the strange thing about real poetry is that it abhors the 
 negative, the iconoclastic; it is essentially creative, and for that 
 reason optimistic. ' Note what happened to Hardy. In his novels 
 he could be as depressing as he wished, but as soon as he turned to 
 poetry he became optimistic. I think you will grant that even in 
 'The Dynasts' there is much hope. 
 
 Materialism is Giving Way to Poetry 
 
 "At the present moment there is not a creed of ethics which i 
 is not shaken, not an accredited dogma of rationalism which is not 
 shown to be questionable, not a received tradition of materialism 
 which does not threaten to dissolve. It is not that science and 
 philosophy have followed the wrong path. Amid their own tribu- 
 lations and martyrdoms they have held inexorably to the truth so 
 far as they could see it; but their glimpses of truth are leading 
 them to a conclusion that they did not foresee. They placed their 
 faith in the fact, as we may say, and now the fact is failing them. 
 
A DEVONSHIRE DITTY 
 
 from "The Enchanted Island" 
 
 In a leafy lane of Devon 
 
 There's a cottage that I know, 
 
 Then a garden — then, a gray old crumbling wall. 
 And the wall's the wall of heaven 
 (Where I hardly care to go) 
 And there isn't any fiery sword at all. 
 
 But I never went to heaven. 
 
 There was right good reason why. 
 
 For they sent a shining angel to me there. 
 An angel, down in Devon, 
 (Clad in muslin, by the bye) 
 With the halo of the sunshine on her hair. 
 
 Ah, whate'er the darkness covers, 
 And whate'er we sing or say, 
 
 Would you climb the wall of heaven an hour too soon 
 If you knew a place for lovers 
 Where the apple-blossoms stray 
 
 Out of heaven to sway and whisper to the moon ? 
 
 When we die — we'll think of Devon 
 
 Where the garden's all aglow 
 
 With the flowers that stray across the gray old wall: 
 Then we'll climb it, out of heaven. 
 
 From the other side, you know. 
 Straggle over it from heaven 
 
 With the apple-blossom snow, 
 Tumble back again to Devon 
 
 Laugh and love as long ago. 
 
 Where there isn't any fiery sword at all. 
 
WHAT ALFRED NOYES BELIEVES 
 
 Their matter, their molecules, their fkst principles are literaily 
 opening before them infinite gates into — what shall we say ? 
 Wherever they thought they had a fundamental fact, a basis for 
 their systems of thought, they have only — on every side — an im- 
 measurable and incomprehensible miracle. On every side, more 
 silently, perhaps, than in temples made with hands, but not less 
 reverently, all true men of science are bowing the head. The old 
 kind of materialistic science has no meaning now, except in the 
 fuddled brains produced by half-knowledge and cheap education. 
 There is no such thing as 'atheism' except on the tubs of Hyde 
 Park, and even there it is only a piteous cry for the light. The 
 strongest part of our philosophy today is its unconscious poetry." 
 
 Peace and Patriotism 
 
 This young oarsman from Oxford, who still keeps up his 
 practice on the river, is heart and soul in the peace movement. On 
 this subject he expressed himself as enthusiastically as on poetry. 
 
 "Does the desire for peace, and for the universal brotherhood 
 of man, have any negative effect on patriotism as the nations 
 interpret it?" I asked. 
 
 The answer came decisively: 
 
 "Patriotism is not dead because it is emancipating itself from 
 the mere trappings of slaughter. The only way to kill it would be 
 to recall it from its triumphant progress and to bind it once more 
 to the worn-out forms of the past. That is what many misguided 
 people at the present day wish to do. But they might as well wish 
 to recall the minds of modern men back to the narrowest outworn 
 religious creeds of the Middle Ages. The day of serfdom is over; 
 the day of gibbet and stake is over; the little day of everlasting fire 
 is over; the day of torture is over. But the spirit of patriotisni, like 
 the spirit of religion, has moved onward, broadening, developing, 
 passing beyond the old boundaries of nationality; yes, and of em- 
 pire, too, as it once passed beyond the boundaries of the family and 
 the tribe. Our god is not a lesser god, but a greater than of old. 
 
 Poetry Puts Meaning Into the Universe 
 
 "The law of our development and progress is like a golden 
 thread, one end of which is already in our hands. We have only 
 
SONG from "DRAKE" 
 
 Now the purple night is past, 
 
 Now the moon more faintly glows, 
 Dawn has through thy casement cast 
 
 Roses on thy breast, a rose; 
 Now the kisses are all done. 
 
 Now the world awakes anew. 
 Now the charmed hour is gone. 
 
 Let not love go, too. 
 
 When old winter, creeping nigh. 
 
 Sprinkles raven hair with white. 
 Dims the brightly glancing eye. 
 
 Laughs away the dancing light, 
 Roses may forget their sun. 
 
 Lilies may forget their dew. 
 Beauties perish, one by one, 
 
 Let not love go, too. 
 
 Palaces and towers of pride 
 
 Crumble year by year away; 
 Creeds like robes are laid aside. 
 
 Even our very tombs decay! 
 When the all-conquering moth and rust 
 
 Gnaw the goodly garment through, 
 When the dust returns to dust, 
 
 Let not love go, too. 
 
 Kingdoms melt away like snow, 
 
 Gods are spent like wasting (lames, 
 Hardly the new peoples know 
 
 Their divine thrice-worshipped names! 
 At the last great hour of all, 
 
 When Thou makest all things new, 
 Father, hear Thy children call. 
 
 Let not love go, too. 
 
WHAT ALFRED NOYES BELIEVES 
 
 to wind it up and faithfully follow it into the Gates of our Abiding 
 City. Too many thinkers of the present day are merely playing 
 tricks with the ball of thread which they already hold in their 
 hands. Every man is, however, an epitome of the history of man- 
 kind. He has only to look in his own heart and trace his own 
 progress from his barbarous boyhood to his full manhood. Celestial 
 splendors beckon us upward and onward. Below us and^behind us 
 lie the darkness and corruption from which we have emerged. 
 
 "The smallest break in the eternal order and harmony is an 
 immeasurable vacuum of the kind that both art and science abhor; 
 for, if we admit it, the universe has no meaning. The poet de- 
 manding that not a worm should be cloven in vain, or crying with 
 Blake that a robin in a cage shakes heaven with anger, are at one 
 with that profound truth — a sparrow shall not fall to the ground 
 without our Father's knowledge. The blades of the grass are all 
 numbered. There is no break in the roll of that harmony 'whereto 
 the worlds beat time,' and it is because great art brings out, as a 
 conductor with a wand, the harmonies hidden by the dust of daily 
 afiairs, that in poetry, as time goes on, our race will come to find 
 an ever surer and surer stay." t ^ 
 
 'Oh, in the new Atlantis of my soul 
 There are no captives : there the wind blows free ; 
 And, as in sleep, I have heard the marching song 
 Of mighty peoples rising in the West, 
 Wonderful cities that shall set their foot 
 Upon the throat of all old tyrannies ; 
 And on the West wind I have heard a cry. 
 The shoreless cry of the prophetic sea 
 Heralding through that golden wilderness 
 The Soul whose path our task is to make straight, 
 Freedom, the last great Saviour of mankind." 
 
 —from" Drake." 
 
Three Stanzas From 
 THE COMPANION OF A MILE 
 
 (T) escribing Morrice Dancers) 
 From "Tales of the Mermaid Tavern" 
 
 "You lout!" she laughed, "I'll leave my pail, and dance 
 vs^ith him for cakes and ale! 
 I'll dance a mile for love," she laughed, "and win my 
 wager, too; 
 Your feet are shod and mine are bare; but when could 
 leather dance on air? 
 A milk-maid's feet can fall as fair and light as falling 
 dew." 
 
 I fitted her with morrice-bells, with treble, bass and tenor 
 bells: 
 The fore-bells, as I linked them at her throat, how soft 
 they sang! 
 Green Hnnets in a golden nest, they chirped and trembled 
 on her breast. 
 And, faint as elfin blue-bells, at her nut-brown ankles 
 rang. 
 
 I fitted her with morrice-bells that sweetened into wood- 
 bine bells, 
 And trembled as I hung them there and crowned her 
 sunny brow: 
 "Strike up," she laughed, "my summer king!" And all 
 her bells began to ring. 
 And Tickle your tabor, Tom," I cried, "we're going to 
 Sherwood now/" 
 
The Beginning of a Ballad in 
 THE BURIAL OF A QUEEN 
 
 From "Tales of the Mermaid Tavern" 
 
 As I went by the cattle-shed 
 
 The grey dew dimmed the grass, 
 And, under a twisted apple-tree. 
 Old Robin Scarlet stood by me. 
 "Keep watch! Keep watch to-night," he said, 
 "There's things 'ul come to pass. 
 
 Keep watch until the moon has cleared 
 
 The thatch of yonder rick; 
 Then I'll come out of my cottage-door 
 To wait for the coach of a queen once more; 
 And — you'll say nothing of what you've heard. 
 
 But rise and follow me quick." 
 
 "And what 'ul I see if I keep your trust, 
 
 And wait and watch so late?" 
 "Pride," he said, "and Pomp," he said, 
 "Beauty to haunt you till you're dead, 
 And Glorious Dust that goes to dust. 
 Passing the white farm-gate. 
 
 "You are young and all for adventure, lad. 
 
 And the great tales to be told: 
 This night, before the clock strike one. 
 Your lordliest hour will all be done; 
 But you'll remember it and be glad. 
 
 In the days when you are old!" 
 
Books by Alfred Noyes 
 
 TALES OF THE MERMAID TAVERN With eight illustrations from old 
 prints. Cloth, l2mo, $1.35 net; postpaid $1.47. 
 
 This is Mr. Noyes' latest, and according to him and other critics, his best work. The 
 Mermaid Tavern was the grathering: place of those famous Elizabethans, Ben 
 Johnson, Shakespeare. Nash, Kit Marlowe and the rest, and these beautiful and 
 rollicking poems are narratives imagined to have been told there. The stories are 
 captivating with either humor or tragedy, and the "singing quality" is developed to 
 a degree higher even than in Noyes previous work. Never before have we been 
 given such an embodiment of the Elizabethan Age— its lyric passion, its adventure, 
 its wit, and its rich colors. 
 
 SHERWOOD. Robin Hood and the Three Kings. With four illustrations 
 in color by Spencer B. Nichols. Cloth. 8vo, $1.75 net; postpaid $1.90. 
 
 A play in verse, based on the Robin Hood story. It introduces the fairies and a new 
 character— Shadow-of-a-Leaf, the jester, a lovable, humorous and pathetic creature 
 fit to rank with Touchstone. The scenes are largely in Sherwood forest. The basic 
 theme is of modern idealism. Robin Hood champion of the poor and oppressed, 
 fights the sordid powers of this world in the person of Prince John, finds temporary 
 but ineffective help from the large hearted crusader, King Richard, but must look 
 for the future of his cause to the Great King beyond, 
 
 DRAKE. An English Epic. With eight illustrations from old prints. Cloth, 
 8vo, $1.30 net; postpaid $1.62. 
 
 Though it bears the forbidding name of "epic' this poem is an enthralling story, 
 told in flowing verse that is both beautiful and easy to read. Simple, ringing, dra- 
 matic, descriptive, it tells how Francis Drake set out on a voyage of discovery, how 
 he conquered mutinies and obstacles, weathered storms, sailed the world around, 
 and defeated the Spanish armada. It is an embodiment of adventure on the sea. 
 The incidental lyrics are marvels of form and substance. 
 
 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. Cloth, 12mo. $1.25 net; postpaid $1.35. 
 
 A volume of ballads, lyrics and odes, including such favorites as "The Admiral's 
 Ghost," "Unity," "The Newspaper Boy," "Bacchus and ttie Pirates," "Rank and 
 File," "The Tramp Transfigured," "The Rock Pool," "In Memory of Swinburne," 
 'Actaeon, " etc. 
 
 COLLECTED POEMS will be Issued probably in the early fall of 1913, in 
 one or two volumes. It will contain Mr. Noyes' poems done previous to 
 the date of publication, including some poems which have never appeared 
 in book form. 
 
 ORDER BLANK 
 
 PLEASE ORDER FROM YOUR BOOKSELLER WHEREVER 
 CONVENIENT, but if more agreeable we will supply you at the prices 
 given here, sending the books directly from our office, by mail. We pay 
 postage, except on NET books ; for these the charge for postage is always 
 stated. 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY, 
 443-449 Fourth Ave., New York 
 
 For $ enclosed, send me 
 
 Tales of the Mermaid Tavern 
 
 Sherwood 
 
 Drake 
 
 The Enchanted Island 
 
 Enter my order for Collected Poems, 
 
 Name _ 
 
 Address 
 
f,*>-. 
 
 .V ^.yM 
 
 J: 
 
 Ik. 
 
 t^- 
 
 i^F 
 
 fe=1d 
 
 i^ 
 
 ?S»^>f^^'M