Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Poems of Fancy: III. Mythical: Mystical: Legendary

Sherwood

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958)

SHERWOOD in the twilight, is Robin Hood awake?

Gray and ghostly shadows are gliding thro’ the brake;

Shadows of the dappled deer, dreaming of the morn,

Dreaming of a shadowy man that winds a shadowy horn.

Robin Hood is here again; all his merry thieves

Hear a ghostly bugle-note shivering thro’ the leaves,

Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,

In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Merry, merry England has kissed the lips of June:

All the wings of fairyland were here beneath the moon;

Like a flight of rose leaves fluttering in a mist

Of opal and ruby and pearl and amethyst.

Merry, merry England is waking as of old,

With eyes of blither hazel and hair of brighter gold:

For Robin Hood is here again beneath the bursting spray

In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Love is in the greenwood building him a house

Of wild rose and hawthorne and honeysuckle boughs:

Love is in the greenwood: Dawn is in the skies;

And Marian is waiting with a glory in her eyes.

Hark! The dazzled laverock climbs the golden steep;

Marian is waiting: is Robin Hood asleep?

Round the fairy grass-rings frolic elf and fay,

In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Oberon, Oberon, rake away the gold,

Rake away the red leaves, roll away the mold,

Rake away the gold leaves, roll away the red,

And wake Will Scarlett from his leafy forest bed.

Friar Tuck and Little John are riding down together

With quarter-staff and drinking-can and gray goose feather;

The dead are coming back again; the years are rolled away

In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Softly over Sherwood the south wind blows;

All the heart of England hidden in a rose

Hears across the greenwood the sunny whisper leap,

Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?

Hark, the voice of England wakes him as of old,

And, shattering the silence with a cry of brighter gold,

A bugle in the greenwood echoes from the steep,

Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?

Where the deer are gliding down the shadowy glen

All across the glades of fern he calls his merry men;

Doublets of the Lincoln green glancing thro’ the May

In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day;

Calls them and they answer: from aisles of oak and ash

Rings the Follow! Follow! and the boughs begin to crash;

The ferns begin to waver and the flowers begin to fly;

And through the crimson dawning the robber band goes by.

Robin! Robin! Robin! All his merry thieves

Answer as the bugle-note shivers thro’ the leaves:

Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,

In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.