Alfred Noyes: Use

“Grant us the single heart once more
That mocks no sacred thing,
The Sword of Truth our fathers wore
When Thou wast Lord and King. Let darkness unto darkness tell
Our deep unspoken prayer;
For, while our souls in darkness dwell,
We know that Thou art there.”

Alfred Noyes

Dedication, later published as "A Prayer in Time of War"
A Belgian Christmas Eve (1915)

Soul , Truth , Heart , Art

“Grant us the single heart once more
That mocks no sacred thing,
The Sword of Truth our fathers wore
When Thou wast Lord and King.”

Alfred Noyes

Dedication, later published as "A Prayer in Time of War"
A Belgian Christmas Eve (1915)
Context: p>Grant us the single heart once more
That mocks no sacred thing,
The Sword of Truth our fathers wore
When Thou wast Lord and King. Let darkness unto darkness tell
Our deep unspoken prayer;
For, while our souls in darkness dwell,
We know that Thou art there.</p

Truth , Heart

“There was music all about us, we were growing quite forgetful
We were only singing seamen from the dirt of Londontown.”

Alfred Noyes

Forty Singing Seamen
Poems (1906)

Music , Singing , Forgetting

“And at our feet unbroken lay
The glass that had whirled us thither away:
And in the grass, among the flowers
We sat and wished all sorts of things:
O, we were wealthier than kings!
We ruled the world for several hours!

And then, it seemed, we knew not why,
All the daisies began to die.
We wished them alive again; but soon
The trees all fled up towards the moon
Like peacocks through the sunlit air:
And the butterflies flapped into silver fish;
And each wish spoiled another wish;
Till we threw the glass down in despair;
For, getting whatever you want to get,
Is like drinking tea from a fishing net.”

Alfred Noyes

Part III : The Mystic Ruby
The Flower of Old Japan and Other Poems (1907), The Flower of Old Japan

World , Flowers , Drink , Fish

“"He is dead," we cried, and even amid that gloom
The wintry veil was rent! The new-born day
Showed us the Angel seated in the tomb
And the stone rolled away.”

Alfred Noyes

Resurrection
Collected Poems (1913)

Angels , Dead

“But just as the world grew right again,
We heard a wanderer out on the plain
Singing what none of us understood;
Yet we thought that the world grew thrice more sweet
And the meadows were blossoming under his feet.
And we felt a grand and beautiful fear,
For we knew that a marvellous thought drew near;
So we kept the glass for a little while:
And the skies grew deeper and twice as bright,
And the seas grew soft as a flower of light,
And the meadows rippled from stile to stile;
And memories danced in a musical throng
Thro' the blossom that scented the wonderful song.”

Alfred Noyes

Part III : The Mystic Ruby
The Flower of Old Japan and Other Poems (1907), The Flower of Old Japan

World , Fear , Beauty , Music

“Come and look for Peterkin, poor little Peterkin.
No one would believe us if we told them what we know,
Or they wouldn't grieve for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin…”

Alfred Noyes

Prelude
The Flower of Old Japan and Other Poems (1907), Forest of Wild Thyme

“And captains that we thought were dead,
And dreamers that we thought were dumb,
And voices that we thought were fled,
Arise, and call us, and we come;
And "search in thine own soul," they cry;
"For there, too, lurks thine enemy."”

Alfred Noyes

Search for the foe in thine own soul,
The sloth, the intellectual pride;
The trivial jest that veils the goal
For which our fathers lived and died;
The lawless dreams, the cynic Art,
That rend thy nobler self apart.
The Search-Lights
The Lord of Misrule and Other Poems (1915)

Soul , Dead , Search , Cry

“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 the song to-day,
One with the clover that scents the world,
One with the Unknown, far away,
One with the stars, when earth grows old.”

Alfred Noyes

Unity, § II
The Golden Hynde and Other Poems (1914)

Tree , Star , Flowers , World

“The fool hath said … The fool hath said
And we, who deemed him wise,
We, who believed that Thou wast dead,
How should we seek Thine eyes?How should we seek to Thee for power,
Who scorned Thee yesterday?
How should we kneel in this dread hour?
Lord, teach us how to pray.”

Alfred Noyes

Dedication, later published as "A Prayer in Time of War"
A Belgian Christmas Eve (1915)

Dead , Fools