Alfred Noyes

“Of the sayings of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels that can be compared to those in the fourth Gospel, there are one or two which I venture to think can only have been recorded on the authority of St. John.”

“The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.”

“St. Luke again associates St. John with St. Peter in the Acts of the Apostles, when, after the Resurrection, that strange boldness had come upon the disciples.”

“At a certain stage in his evolution, man himself had been able to lay hold upon a higher order of things, which raised him above the level of the beasts that perish, and enabled him to see, at least in the distance, the shining towers of the City of God.”

“Stand like a beaten anvil, when thy dreamIs laid upon thee, golden from the fire.Flinch not, though heavily through that furnace-gleamThe black forge-hammers fall on thy desire.Demoniac giants round thee seem to loom.'Tis but the world-smiths heaving to and fro.Stand like a beaten anvil. Take the doomTheir ponderous weapons deal thee, blow on blow.Needful to truth as dew-fall to the flowerIs this wild wrath and this implacable scorn.For every pang, new beauty, and new power,Burning blood-red shall on thy heart be born.Stand like a beaten anvil. Let earth's wrongBeat on that iron and ring back in song.”