• The Noyes is a stanzaic form using uneven short emphatic lines. It is named for English poet Alfred Noyes (1880-1958) patterned after his poem Art. Noyes is better known for The Highwayman.
The Noyes is:
○ stanzaic, written in any number of quatrains.
○ metered, L1,L2,L4 are trimeter, L3 is monometer.
○ abab cdcd efeg ghgh.
Art by Alfred Noyes
I
Yes! Beauty still rebels!
Our dreams like clouds disperse:
She dwells
In agate, marble, verse.
No false constraint be thine!
But, for right walking, choose
The fine,
The strict cothurnus, Muse.
Vainly ye seek to escape
The toil! The yielding phrase
Ye shape
Is clay, not chrysoprase.
And all in vain ye scorn
That seeming ease which ne’er
Was born
Of aught but love and care.
Take up the sculptor’s tool!
Recall the gods that die
To rule
In Parian o’er the sky.
II
Poet, let passion sleep
Till with the cosmic rhyme
You keep
Eternal tone and time,
By rule of hour and flower,
By strength of stern restraint
And power
To fail and not to faint.
The task is hard to learn
While all the songs of Spring
Return
Along the blood and sing.
Yet hear—from her deep skies,
How Art, for all your pain,
Still cries
Ye must be born again!
Reject the wreath of rose,
Take up the crown of thorn
That shows
To-night a child is born.
The far immortal face
In chosen onyx fine
Enchase,
Delicate line by line.
Strive with Carrara, fight
With Parian, till there steal
To light
Apollo’s pure profile.
Set the great lucid form
Free from its marble tomb
To storm
The heights of death and doom.
Take up the sculptor’s tool!
Recall the gods that die
To rule
In Parian o’er the sky.
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=668
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for the years of work on the wonderful PMO resource.
My Example poem
Be Thus (The Noyes)
I think therefore I am
Rene DesCartes once wrote.
and damn,
I think he’s one to quote.
I’m sure of my belief,
as each of us should be,
Good grief!
…and it’s not fed to me.
I’ve paid some heavy dues
and learned along the way.
Excuse
me- I’ve much more to say.
Examine your own life
let none impose a veil
of strife.
All dogmas will grow stale.
Do I equivocate?
I very seldom do!
It’s late
but I’m not nearly through.
For seeking out what’s fun
that harms no other soul
when done
could well define your role.
Bring joy to all you meet
Don’t magnify your needs
Don’t cheat
then count on prayer beads.
Remember greed provides
no way to be content.
Besides,
it causes discontent.
Enjoy the grass, the trees,
the animals that roam;
and please
enjoy the gifts of home.
© Lawrencealot – July 6, 2014
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