Collected Poems: Volume Two. Alfred Noyes
Love-lorn casements, delicate kingdoms, beautiful flaming thoughts of—Him;
Feasts of a million blue-mailed angels lifting their honey-and-wine-brimmed chalices,
Throned upon clouds—(which you'd call white clover) down to the world's most rosiest rim.
XXXI
New and new and new and new, the white o' the cliffs and the wind in the heather,
Yus, and the sea-gulls flying like flakes of the sea that flashed to the new-born day,
Song, song, song, song, quivering up in the wild blue weather,
Thousands of seraphim singing together, and me just flying and—knowing my way.
XXXII
Straight as a die to Piddinghoe's dolphin, and there I drops in a cottage garden,
There, on a sun-warmed window-sill, I winks and peeps, for the window was wide!
Crumbs, he was there and fast in her arms and a-begging his poor old mother's pardon,
There with his lips on her old grey hair, and her head on his breast while she laughed and cried—
XXXIII
"One and nine-pence that old tramp gave me, or else I should never have reached you, sonny, Never, and you just leaving the village to-day and meaning to cross the sea, One and nine-pence he gave me, I paid for the farmer's lift with half o' the money! Here's the ten-pence halfpenny, sonny, 'twill pay for our little 'ouse-warming tea."
* * * *
XXXIV
Tick, tack, tick, tack, out into the garden Toddles that old Fairy with his arm about her—so, Cuddling of her still, and still a-begging of her pardon, While she says "I wish the corn-flower king could only know! Bless him, bless him, once again," she says and softly gazes Up to heaven, a-smiling in her mutch as white as snow, All among her gilly-flowers and stocks and double daisies, Mignonette, forget-me-not, … Twenty years ago, All a rosy glow, This is how it was, she said, Twenty years ago.
* * * *
XXXV
Once again I seemed to wake, the vision it had fled, sir,
There I lay upon the downs: the sky was like a peach;
Yus, with twelve bokays of corn-flowers blue beside my bed, sir,
More than usual 'andsome, so they'd bring me two-pence each.
Easy as a poet's dreams they blossomed round my head, sir,
All I had to do was just to lift my hand and reach,
Tie 'em with a bit of string, and earn my blooming bread, sir,
Selling little nose-gays on the bare-foot Brighton beach,
Nose-gays and a speech, All about the bright blue eyes they matched on Brighton beach.
XXXVI
Overhead the singing lark and underfoot the heather,
Far and blue in front of us the unplumbed sky,
Me and stick and bundle, O, we jogs along together,
(Changeable the weather? Well, it ain't all pie!)
Weather's like a woman, sir, and if she wants to quarrel,
If her eyes begin to flash and hair begins to fly,
You've to wait a little, then—the story has a moral—
Ain't the sunny kisses all the sweeter by and bye?—
(Crumbs, it's 'ot and dry!
Thank you, sir! Thank you, sir!) the sweeter by and bye.
XXXVII
So the world's my sweetheart and I sort of want to squeeze 'er.
Toffs 'ull get no chance of heaven, take 'em in the lump!
Never laid in hay-fields when the dawn came over-sea, sir?
Guess it's true that story 'bout the needle and the hump! Never crept into a stack because the wind was blowing,
Hollered out a nest and closed the door-way with a clump,
Laid and heard the whisper of the silence, growing, growing,
Watched a thousand wheeling stars and wondered if they'd bump?
What I say would stump
Joshua! But I've done it, sir. Don't think I'm off my chump.
XXXVIII
If you try and lay, sir, with your face turned up to wonder,
Up to twenty million miles of stars that roll like one,
Right across to God knows where, and you just huddled under
Like a little beetle with no business of his own,
There you'd hear—like growing grass—a funny silent sound, sir,
Mixed with curious crackles in a steady undertone,
Just the sound of twenty billion stars a-going round, sir,
Yus, and you beneath 'em like a wise old ant, alone,
Ant upon a stone,
Waving of his antlers, on the Sussex downs, alone.
ON THE DOWNS
Wide-eyed our childhood roamed the world
Knee-deep in blowing grass,
And watched the white clouds crisply curled
Above the mountain-pass,
And lay among the purple thyme
And from its fragrance caught
Strange hints from some elusive clime
Beyond the bounds of thought.
Glimpses of fair forgotten things
Beyond the gates of birth,
Half-caught from far off ancient springs
In heaven, and half of earth; And coloured like a fairy-tale
And whispering evermore
Half memories from the half-fenced pale
Of lives we lived before.
Here, weary of the roaring town
A-while may I return
And while the west wind roams the down
Lie still, lie still and learn:
Here are green leagues of murmuring wheat
With blue skies overhead,
And, all around, the winds are sweet
With May-bloom, white and red.
And, to and fro, the bee still hums
His low unchanging song,
And the same rustling whisper comes
As through the ages long:
Through all the thousands of the years
That same sweet rumour flows,
With dreaming skies and gleaming tears
And kisses and the rose.
Once more the children throng the lanes,
Themselves like flowers, to weave
Their garlands and their daisy-chains
And listen and believe
The tale of Once-upon-a-time, And hear the Long-ago And