In the time-worn but useful classification of versemakers under the labels _Vates_ and _Poeta_, Alfred Noyes belongs clearly to the latter group. He is not without ideas, but he is primarily an artist, a singer. He is one of the most melodious of modern writers, with a witchery in words that at its best is irresistible. He has an extraordinary command of the resources of language and rhythm. Were this all he possessed, he would be nothing but a graceful musician. But he has the imagination of the inspired poet, giving him creative power to reveal anew the majesty of the untamed sea, and the mystery of the stars. With this clairvoyance--essential in poetry--he has a hearty, charming, incondescending sympathy with "common" people, common flowers, common music. One of his most original and most captivating poems is _The Tramp Transfigured, an Episode in the Life of a Corn-flower Millionaire_. This contains a character worthy of Dickens, a faery touch of fantasy, a rippling, singing melody, with delightful audacities of rime. _Tick, tack, tick, tack_, I couldn't wait no longer! Up I gets and bows polite and pleasant as a toff-- "Arternoon," I says, "I'm glad your boots are going stronger; Only thing I'm dreading is your feet 'ull both come off." _Tick, tack, tick, tack_, she didn't stop to answer, "Arternoon," she says, and sort o' chokes a little cough, "I must get to Piddinghoe tomorrow if I can, sir!" "Demme, my good woman! Haw! Don't think I mean to loff," Says I, like a toff, "Where d'you mean to sleep tonight? God made this grass for go'ff." His masterpiece, _The Barrel-Organ_, has something of Kipling's rollicking music, with less noise and more refinement. Out of the mechanical grinding of the hand organ, with the accompaniment of city omnibuses, we get the very breath of spring in almost intolerable sweetness. This poem affects the head, the heart, and the feet. I defy any man or woman to read it without surrendering to the magic of the lilacs, the magic of old memories, the magic of the poet. Nor has one ever read this poem without going immediately back to the first line, and reading it all over again, so susceptible are we to the romantic pleasure of melancholy. Mon coeur est un luth suspendu: Sitôt qu'on le touche, il résonne.