Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE UNCONSCIOUS by ALFRED NOYES

Poet Analysis

First Line: TELL ME YOU THAT SING IN THE BLACK-THORN
Last Line: THROAT OF A BIRD.
Tell me you
That sing in the black-thorn
Out of what Mind
Your melody springs.
Is it the World-soul
Throbs like a fountain
Up through the throat
Of an elf with wings?

Five sweet notes
In a golden order,
Out of that deep realm
Quivering through,
Flashed like a phrase
Of light through darkness.
But @3Who@1 so ordered them?
Tell me, @3Who?@1

You whose throats
In the rain-drenched orchard
Peal your joys
In a cadenced throng;
You whose wild notes,
Fettered by Beauty,
Move like the stars
In a rounded song;

Yours is the breath
But @3Whose@1 is the measure,
Shaped in an ecstasy
Past all art?
Yours is the spending;
@3Whose@1 is the treasure?
Yours is the blood-beat;
@3Whose@1 is the heart?

Minstrels all
That have woven your houses
Of withies and twigs
With a Mind in-wrought,
Ye are the shuttles;
But, out of what Darkness
Gather your thoughtless
Patterns of thought?

Bright eyes glance
Through your elfin doorways,
Roofed with rushes,
And lined with moss.
@3Whose@1 are the voiceless
Pangs of creation?
Yours is the wild bough:
Whose is the @3Cross?@1

Carols of light
From a lovelier kingdom,
Gleams of a music
On earth unheard,
Scattered like dew
By the careless wayside,
Pour through the lifted
Throat of a bird.



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