On A Mountain Top

On this high altar, fringed with ferns

That darken against the sky,

The dawn in lonely beauty burns

And all our evils die.

The struggling sea that roared below

Is quieter than the dew,

Quieter than the clouds that flow

Across the stainless blue.

On this bare crest, the angels kneel

And breathe the sweets that rise

From flowers too little to reveal

Their beauty to our eyes.

I have seen Edens on the earth

With queenly blooms arrayed;

But here the fairest come to birth,

The smallest flowers He made.

O, high above the sounding pine,

And richer, sweeter far,

The wild thyme wakes. The celandine

Looks at the morning star.

They may not see the heavens unfold.

They breathe no out-worn prayer;

But, on a mountain, as of old,

His glory fills the air.

Alfred Noyes

Alfred Noyes, (born Sept. 16, 1880, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, Eng.—died June 28, 1958, Isle of Wight), English poet, a traditionalist remembered chiefly for his lyrical verse. Noyes’ first volume of poems, The Loom of Years (1902), published while he was still at the University of Oxford, was followed by others that showed patriotic fervor and a love for the sea. He taught modern English literature at Princeton University in the United States from 1914 to 1923. Of Noyes’s later works, the most notable is the epic trilogy The Torch-Bearers (1922–30), which took as its theme the progress of science through the ages. His autobiography, Two Worlds for Memory, appeared in 1953. Noyes married Garnett Daniels in 1907, and they had three children. His increasing popularity allowed the family to live off royalty checks. In 1914, Noyes accepted a teaching position at Princeton University, where he taught English Literature until 1923. He was a noted critic of modernist writers, particularly James Joyce. Likewise, his work at this time was criticized by some for its refusal to embrace the modernist movement. After the death of his wife, Garnett in 1926, Noyes converted to Roman Catholicism and married his second wife, Mary Angela Mayne Weld-Blundell. In 1929, the family moved to Lisle Combe, St Lawrence, Isle of Wight where Noyes continued to write essays and poems, culminating in the collection, Orchard's Bay (1939). Alfred Noyes died on June 25, 1958, and was buried on the Isle of Wight.

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