Alfred Noyes Quotes

52 Sourced Quotes

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 today,
One with the clover that scents the world,
One with the Unknown, far away,
One with the stars, when earth grows old.

Alfred Noyes
A shadow leaned over me, whispering, in the darkness,
Thoughts without sound;
Sorrowful thoughts that filled me with helpless wonder
And held me bound.

Alfred Noyes
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
They wouldn't mourn for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin.
Put away your muskets, lay aside the drum,
Hang it by the wooden sword we made for little Peterkin!

Alfred Noyes
We have come by curious ways
To the Light that holds the days;
We have sought in haunts of fear
For that all-enfolding sphere:
And lo! it was not far, but near. We have found, O foolish-fond,
The shore that has no shore beyond. Deep in every heart it lies
With its untranscended skies;
For what heaven should bend above
Hearts that own the heaven of love?

Alfred Noyes
Carol, every violet has
Heaven for a looking-glass! Every little valley lies
Under many-clouded skies;
Every little cottage stands
Girt about with boundless lands;
Every little glimmering pond
Claims the mighty shores beyond;
Shores no seaman ever hailed,
Seas no ship has ever sailed. All the shores when day is done
Fade into the setting sun,
So the story tries to teach
More than can be told in speech.

Alfred Noyes
Like the dawn upon a dream
Slowly through the scented gloom
Crept once more the ruddy gleam
O'er the friendly nursery room.
There, before our waking eyes,
Large and ghostly, white and dim,
Dreamed the Flower that never dies,
Opening wide its rosy rim.

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

Alfred Noyes
Memory, out of the mist, in a long slow ripple
Breaks, blindly, against the shore.

Alfred Noyes
Beauty is a fading flower,
Truth is but a wizard's tower,
Where a solemn death-bell tolls,
And a forest round it rolls.

Alfred Noyes
Never since Drake and Raleigh won
Our freedom of the seas,
Have sons of Britain dared and done
More valiantly than these.

Alfred Noyes
He was once our trumpeter, now his bugle's dumb,
Pile your arms beneath it, for the owlet light is come,
We'll wander through the roses where we marched of old with Peterkin,
We'll search the summer sunset where the Hybla beehives hum,
And — if we meet a fairy there — we'll ask for news of Peterkin.

Alfred Noyes
Soundlessly, shadow with shadow, we wrestled together,
Till the grey dawn.

Alfred Noyes
Mystery: Time and Tide shall pass,
I am the Wisdom Looking-Glass. This is the Ruby none can touch:
Many have loved it overmuch;
Its fathomless fires flutter and sigh,
Being as images of the flame
That shall make earth and heaven the same
When the fire of the end reddens the sky,
And the world consumes like a burning pall,
Till where there is nothing, there is all.

Alfred Noyes
He died and He went down to hell!
You know not what you mean.
Our rafters were of green fir. Also our beds were green.
But out of the mouth of a fool, a fool, before the darkness fall,
We tell you He is risen again,
The Lord of Life is risen again,
The boughs put forth their tender buds, and
Love is Lord of all!

Alfred Noyes
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
"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
Oh, grown-ups cannot understand, And grown-ups never will, How short the way to fairyland Across the purple hill.

Alfred Noyes
Go down to Kew in lilac time (it isn't far from London!) And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland.

Alfred Noyes
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.

Alfred Noyes
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
Yes; as the music changes,
Like a prismatic glass,
It takes the light and ranges
Through all the moods that pass;
Dissects the common carnival
Of passions and regrets,
And gives the world a glimpse of all
The colours it forgets.

Alfred Noyes