The Highwayman

English poet Alfred Noyes wrote and published “The Highwayman” in 1906 during the early period of his literary career. The poem was written during the Edwardian Period of English literature but reflects influences from the romantic period a century earlier. Told as a narrative, “The Highwayman” recounts the doomed romance between a highwayman and a landlord’s daughter, Bess, who he visits in the night. Their love is sabotaged by jealousy; the poem romanticizes Bess’s sacrifice of her life for her love, as well as the highwayman’s grief and death upon losing her.

Indicative of the multifaceted nature of love, Noyes explores the danger, passion, and eternal promise of love through its tragic ending. Characterized by somber tragedy and bloody violence, “The Highwayman” is atypical for Noyes, whose work generally assumed an optimistic tone. Extremely popular among the reading public, “The Highwayman” is one of Noyes’s best-known poems and has enjoyed lasting popularity long after its original publication.

Poet Biography

Alfred Noyes was born on September 16, 1880, and grew up in Wolverhampton, England. His father gave him an early education and he attended Exeter College in Oxford, England, but left school before he earned his degree. Noyes was an extremely prolific writer; he began publishing poetry in 1902 at the age of 21, and went on to publish six collections of poems by the time he was 28. Noyes’s early work—including “The Highwayman” and “Drake”—demonstrated the influence of 19th-century poets, like Alfred Tennyson and William Wordsworth, and established a romantic and simplistic style in Noyes’s early years. He married American Garnett Daniels in 1907; after traveling with her in the United States, he accepted a position teaching English Literature at Princeton University in 1914 and stayed until 1923. Unlike many of his peers, his work was well-reviewed and popular enough to financially support his family; by the age of 30, he had established himself as the most commercially popular poet of his age group.

Throughout the 1920s, Noyes continued to write, working on epics like “The Torch Bearers,” which was published in three volumes between 1922 and 1930. Despite increasing criticism, he rejected the emergent modernist literary movement, keeping with a more traditional style and meter. Noyes’s work began to embody more religious themes after his first wife died in 1926 and he joined the Catholic Church. Noyes married Mary Weld-Blundell in 1927 and they had three children together.

Although a pacifist, Noyes wrote patriotic poems during World War I and II. He lived between America, England, and Canada most of his life, returning to England in 1949 where, due to increasing blindness, he dictated his work. In addition to poetry, he published children’s stories, novels, science fiction and fantasy, an autobiography, and a play, and continued to write until his death on June 25, 1958 at the age of 77.

Poem Text

“The Highwayman”

Part I

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,

And the highwayman came riding—

  Riding—riding—

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,

A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;

They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!

And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,

   His pistol butts a-twinkle,

His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,

He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;

He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there

But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,

   Bess, the landlord's daughter,

Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked

Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;

His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,

But he loved the landlord's daughter,

   The landlord's red-lipped daughter,

Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,

But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;

Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,

Then look for me by moonlight,

   Watch for me by moonlight,

I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."

He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,

But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand

As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;

And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,

   (Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)

Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West.

Part II

He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;

And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,

When the road was a gipsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,

A red-coat troop came marching—

   Marching—marching—

King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,

But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;

Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!

There was death at every window;

   And hell at one dark window;

For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;

They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!

"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her.

   She heard the doomed man say—

Look for me by moonlight;

   Watch for me by moonlight;

I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!

She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!

They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,

Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,

   Cold, on the stroke of midnight,

The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

The tip of one finger touched it; She strove no more for the rest!

Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,

She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;

For the road lay bare in the moonlight;

   Blank and bare in the moonlight;

And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain.

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;

Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?

Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,

The highwayman came riding,

   Riding, riding!

The red coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!

Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!

Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!

Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,

Then her finger moved in the moonlight,

   Her musket shattered the moonlight,

Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.

He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood

Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!

Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew gray to hear

How Bess, the landlord's daughter,

   The landlord's black-eyed daughter,

Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,

With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!

Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,

When they shot him down on the highway,

   Down like a dog on the highway, And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

* * * *

And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,

When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,

When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,

A highwayman comes riding—

   Riding—riding—

A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;

He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;

He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there

But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,

   Bess, the landlord's daughter,

Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Noyes, Alfred. “The Highwayman.” 1906. American Academy of Poets.

Summary

Part one begins on a windy, moonlight night in the moors. A highwayman rides up to an inn. He is well-dressed in a French cocked-hat, lace at his chin, a velvet coat, leather breeches and thigh-high boots. His jewelry and weapons twinkle in the night. When he arrives, he taps at the shutters, but all is locked. When he whistles, the landlord’s black-eyed daughter Bess appears at the window, braiding a red “love-knot” (Line 18) into her hair. Meanwhile, Tim the ostler who loves Bess, is eavesdropping on their conversation. The highwayman asks Bess for a kiss and tells her he plans to steal some gold but will be back before dawn—or by moonlight the next night if they give him trouble. Though he stands on his stirrups he can only reach her hand, so she lets down her long dark hair, which he kisses, then rides off to the west.

In Part Two, the highwayman does not arrive at dawn, nor at noon. At sunset, King George’s redcoat troops march into town and up to the inn. They drink the landlord’s ale and gag his daughter, tying her to the foot of her bed. The men wait in ambush at the windows and from her position, Bess can see the road the highwayman will take into town. The men tied Bess to the bed with a musket pointed under her beast, and teased and kissed her as they told her to keep good watch for the highwayman. In her mind, she knows he is doomed and hears him telling her to watch for him by the moonlight. She struggles for hours to get free but is tightly bound. At midnight, she finally reaches the musket’s trigger, which is enough to pull it; she silently stands and watches the empty road.

She hears the tlot-tlot of the horse’s hooves before the soldiers do and sees the highwayman riding along the road. The redcoats suddenly snap to attention, and she stands tall as he draws nearer and nearer. Taking a final deep breath, she pulls the musket’s trigger and shoots herself in the chest. The shot rings out and warns the highwayman of the ambush, so he turns and heads west once more. In that moment, he is unaware it was Bess who surrendered herself, but at dawn, he learns of her sacrifice and rides back to town, enraged and heartbroken. By noon he has been shot down on the highway.

In the last two stanzas of the poem, the speaker recounts how it is said that on a windy, moonlight night in the moors, the highwayman’s ghost comes riding down the road to the inn door. He taps on the windows with no answer and when he whistles a tune, the ghost of the landlord’s black-eyed daughter appears, waiting for him and braiding the red love knot into her hair.