On The Western Front

I found a dreadful acre of the dead,

Marked with the only sign on earth that saves.

The wings of death were hurrying overhead,

The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves;

For the deep gun-pits, with quick stabs of flame,

Made their own thunders of the sunlit air;

Yet, as I read the crosses, name by name,

Rank after rank, it seemed that peace was there;

Sunlight and peace, a peace too deep for thought,

The peace of tides that underlie our strife,

The peace with which the moving heavens are fraught,

The peace that is our everlasting life.

The loose earth shook. The very hills were stirred.

The silence of the dead was all I heard.

We, who lie here, have nothing more to pray.

To all your praises we are deaf and blind.

We may not ever know if you betray

Our hope, to make earth better for mankind.

Only our silence, in the night, shall grow

More silent, as the stars grow in the sky;

And, while you deck our graves, you shall not know

How many scornful legions pass you by.

For we have heard you say (when we were living)

That some small dream of good would “cost too much.”

But when the foe struck, we have watched you giving,

And seen you move the mountains with one touch.

What can be done, we know. But, have no fear!

If you fail now, we shall not see or hear.

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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