Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.
Then at last they found their little brother Peterkin in "The Babe of
Bethlehem."
And if this were not enough to make the reader see how completely and wholly and sympathetically Noyes understood the child heart, hear this word from his great soul:
"Kind little eyes that I love,
Eyes forgetful of mine,
In a dream I am bending above
Your sleep and you open and shine;
And I know as my own grow blind
With a lonely prayer for your sake,
He will hear—even me—little eyes that were kind,
God bless you, asleep or awake!"
Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes.
MANHOOD AND ITS VIGOR
Virility like unto steel is the very mark of Noyes. But as this study of Childhood has shown, it is a virility touched with tenderness. As Bayard Taylor sings:
"The bravest are the tenderest,
The loving are the daring!"
And this is Noyes. Noyes knew Manhood, he sang it, he challenged it too, he crowned it in "Drake"; he placed it a little lower than the gods. Hear this supreme word, enough to lift man to the skies:
"Where, what a dreamer yet, in spite of all,
Is man, that splendid visionary child
Who sent his fairy beacon through the dusk!"