Alfred Noyes (1880-1958)

File under poems that are enjoyable to read aloud?

I wonder how many children have had this poem inflicted on them by English teachers who have used it to teach ‘similes and metaphors’. Now, draw the moon as a ghostly galleon…Now find a simile and draw that..

Stripped down to its narrative bones it has the lack of sentiment of a traditional ballad. The Jealous Lover gets rid of his rival and in so doing causes the death of the woman he desires. Bess kills herself to save the Highwayman, but he dies anyway. Everybody loses. And like the central character in a good ghost story, the Highwayman keeps his promise, even though he’s dead.

It lacks the stripped down austerity of a genuine ballad, and the long vowel sounds ring false. Moon is repeated so often it begins to sound like a herd of cows in a paddock.

It's been set to music many times and if you’ve never heard it sung, Andy Irvine does a good version.

This is taken from ‘Poems and Ballads’ (1927).