# The Highwayman (poem)
"The Highwayman" is a narrative ballad by the English poet [Alfred Noyes](https://www.edgepedia.org/alfred-noyes), first published in *Blackwood's Magazine* in August 1906, about an eighteenth-century robber on horseback who promises to return by moonlight to Bess, the landlord's daughter.[1](https://www.poetrydatabase.com/poems/the-highwayman/) After King George's troops bind Bess to lure the highwayman, she shoots herself with a musket so the sound will alert him; returning to take revenge for her, he is killed by their gunfire.[1](https://www.poetrydatabase.com/poems/the-highwayman/) It became Noyes's best-known work and was learned by generations of British schoolchildren.[2](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/alfred-noyes/the-highwayman)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Author | Alfred Noyes (1880–1958), English poet, later a professor at Princeton[2](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/alfred-noyes/the-highwayman) • [3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/highwayman) |
| First publication | *Blackwood's Magazine*, August 1906; collected in *Forty Singing Seamen and Other Poems* (1907)[1](https://www.poetrydatabase.com/poems/the-highwayman/) • [2](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/alfred-noyes/the-highwayman) |
| Composition | Written in about two days when Noyes was 24, at Bagshot Heath, Surrey[4](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alfred-noyes) • [1](https://www.poetrydatabase.com/poems/the-highwayman/) |
| Form | 17 six-line stanzas rhymed AABCCB, in a driving accentual meter, with a final ghost-story coda[2](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/alfred-noyes/the-highwayman) |
| Setting | An English inn on a moorland road, in the reign of King George in the 18th century[1](https://www.poetrydatabase.com/poems/the-highwayman/) • [5](https://www.thenational.academy/teachers/programmes/english-primary-ks2/units/the-highwayman-narrative-writing/lessons/understanding-the-context-of-the-highwayman) |
| Standing | Voted 15th in the BBC's 1995 poll for "The Nation's Favourite Poems"[6](https://www.gdcdoongi.ac.in/web/E_Content/highwayman_afred.pdf) |
## Publication and composition
The poem first appeared in the August 1906 issue of *Blackwood's Magazine*, a periodical based in Edinburgh, and was included the following year in Noyes's collection *Forty Singing Seamen and Other Poems*, where it became an immediate success.[1](https://www.poetrydatabase.com/poems/the-highwayman/) • [6](https://www.gdcdoongi.ac.in/web/E_Content/highwayman_afred.pdf) The magazine printed it in volume CLXXX (July to December 1906), on page 244.[7](https://stjohnsonline.org/bio/james-wright/) Noyes said he wrote it in two days at the age of 24, "the age when I was genuinely excited by that kind of romantic story."[4](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alfred-noyes) An early manuscript draft of the poem survives in the Alfred Noyes papers at [Boston College](https://www.edgepedia.org/boston-college)'s Burns Library.[8](https://findingaids.bc.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/61061)
## The story
The poem tells a tragic story of love and sacrifice. A highwayman, dressed in a French cocked-hat, a coat of claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin, rides up to an old inn-door where Bess, the landlord's black-eyed daughter, waits for him, plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.[9](https://writing.upenn.edu/library/Noyes-Alfred_The-Highwayman.html) Tim, the ostler who loves Bess, eavesdrops on the lovers and betrays the highwayman to the authorities.[10](https://www.gdcdoongi.ac.in/web/E_Content/highway.pdf)
After the highwayman leaves, King George's red-coat soldiers arrive, tie Bess up, and wait at the inn to trap him.[11](https://www.hamilton-trust.org.uk/english/unit/42-core-introduction-to-historical-narrative-poetry-discuss-learn-and-perform/) Hearing him galloping toward the inn in the quiet of the night, Bess fires the musket into her own breast, warning him with her death.[12](https://www.supersummary.com/the-highwayman/analysis/) He does not learn of her sacrifice until dawn; then he spurs back "like a madman" and is shot down on the highway, dying "with a bunch of lace at his throat."[13](https://literaryballadarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/Noyes_3_Highwayman_ff.pdf)
The final two stanzas replay the opening in the present tense, so the love story turns into a ghost story: on winter nights, when the moon is a ghostly galleon and the road a ribbon of moonlight, a highwayman still comes riding to the inn-door, where Bess waits for him.[1](https://www.poetrydatabase.com/poems/the-highwayman/) • [2](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/alfred-noyes/the-highwayman)
## Form and style
The poem is a ballad in form, with a rhyme scheme, a bouncy rhythm, and heavy repetition.[14](https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio/pdfs/talking_poetry_notes.pdf) It does not use the traditional four-line [ballad stanza](https://www.edgepedia.org/ballad-stanza); instead it runs through 17 six-line stanzas rhymed AABCCB, in an accentual meter counted in beats rather than syllable patterns: three six-beat lines, two short lines of two or three beats, and a final six-beat line.[2](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/alfred-noyes/the-highwayman) The short middle lines always carry strong repetition, such as the "riding— / Riding—riding—" of the first stanza, which gives the verse its galloping, song-like quality.[2](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/alfred-noyes/the-highwayman)
The opening stanza's parallel metaphors set the poem's atmosphere: "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."[2](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/alfred-noyes/the-highwayman) Red runs through the poem as love and blood together, from the "dark red love-knot" and the red-coat soldiers to Bess "drenched with her own red blood" and the highwayman's "wine-red" coat and "blood-red" spurs.[1](https://www.poetrydatabase.com/poems/the-highwayman/)
## Context and reception
By mentioning "King George's men," the poem situates its tale in the Georgian period, the heyday of English highwaymen, an age in which riding robbers like [Dick Turpin](https://www.edgepedia.org/dick-turpin) were turned into romantic folk heroes by ballads while still alive.[1](https://www.poetrydatabase.com/poems/the-highwayman/) • [2](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/alfred-noyes/the-highwayman) Noyes, writing in 1906 long past the time of the highwayman, was relishing a romantic, ghostly past; the poem has more to do with balladry and old tales than with the historical reality of British highwaymen.[2](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/alfred-noyes/the-highwayman)
Noyes was part of the same generation as the modernists, but while writers such as T.S. Eliot and [Virginia Woolf](https://www.edgepedia.org/virginia-woolf) experimented with free verse and stream of consciousness, he clung to the poetic tradition of the 19th century, drawing on favorites like Tennyson and Wordsworth.[2](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/alfred-noyes/the-highwayman) Critics have appreciated the poem's compelling narrative and metrical energy; Walter Jerrold praised its "popular appeal" and "dramatic intensity," and Patrick Braybrooke called it "an absolute model of careful and skilled romanticism."[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/highwayman) In 1995 it was voted 15th in the BBC's poll for "The Nation's Favourite Poems."[6](https://www.gdcdoongi.ac.in/web/E_Content/highwayman_afred.pdf)
## Adaptations
The poem has been memorized by generations of schoolchildren and repeatedly set to music and illustration.[15](https://www.pbs.org/video/tpt-specials-highwayman-alfred-noyes/) An illustrated edition by Charles Keeping, published by [Oxford University Press](https://www.edgepedia.org/oxford-university-press), won the Library Association's Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration; the Carnegies archive lists Charles Keeping, *The Highwayman*, OUP, as the 1981 Medal for Illustration winner.[16](https://carnegies.co.uk/archive/illustration-winners/) • [17](https://natlib.govt.nz/records/20574267) Keeping, an English illustrator and lithographer (1924–1988), gave the poem a distinctive black-and-white treatment in evocative line and wash.[18](https://www.bitesizedbritain.co.uk/charles-keeping-master-of-the-macabre111/) A 1986 performance by the Minnesota reggae band Ipso Facto, broadcast on [Twin Cities PBS](https://www.edgepedia.org/twin-cities-pbs) as part of a 12-hour literacy broadcast, is another of the poem's musical afterlives.[15](https://www.pbs.org/video/tpt-specials-highwayman-alfred-noyes/)
## References
1. [The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes: Poem and Analysis, Poetry Database](https://www.poetrydatabase.com/poems/the-highwayman/)
2. [The Highwayman Poem Summary and Analysis, LitCharts](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/alfred-noyes/the-highwayman)
3. [The Highwayman, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/highwayman)
4. [Alfred Noyes, The Poetry Foundation](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alfred-noyes)
5. [Understanding the context of 'The Highwayman', Oak National Academy](https://www.thenational.academy/teachers/programmes/english-primary-ks2/units/the-highwayman-narrative-writing/lessons/understanding-the-context-of-the-highwayman)
6. [About the Poem: The Highwayman, GDC Doongi](https://www.gdcdoongi.ac.in/web/E_Content/highwayman_afred.pdf)
7. [James Wright: The Highwayman, St. John's Cemetery Project](https://stjohnsonline.org/bio/james-wright/)
8. [Poetry by Alfred Noyes, Burns Library Archival Collections](https://findingaids.bc.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/61061)
9. [The Highwayman full text, University of Pennsylvania](https://writing.upenn.edu/library/Noyes-Alfred_The-Highwayman.html)
10. [Critical Analysis of The Highwayman, GDC Doongi](https://www.gdcdoongi.ac.in/web/E_Content/highway.pdf)
11. [Introduction to historical narrative poetry, Hamilton Brookes](https://www.hamilton-trust.org.uk/english/unit/42-core-introduction-to-historical-narrative-poetry-discuss-learn-and-perform/)
12. [The Highwayman Poem Analysis, SuperSummary](https://www.supersummary.com/the-highwayman/analysis/)
13. [Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman text, Literary Ballad Archive](https://literaryballadarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/Noyes_3_Highwayman_ff.pdf)
14. [BBC School Radio: Talking Poetry teacher notes](https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio/pdfs/talking_poetry_notes.pdf)
15. [30 POETS, 30 DAYS: The Highwayman as performed by Ipso Facto, PBS](https://www.pbs.org/video/tpt-specials-highwayman-alfred-noyes/)
16. [Medal for Illustration Winners, The Carnegies](https://carnegies.co.uk/archive/illustration-winners/)
17. [The highwayman / written by Alfred Noyes; illustrated by Charles Keeping, National Library of New Zealand](https://natlib.govt.nz/records/20574267)
18. [Charles Keeping, artistic master of the macabre, Bite Sized Britain](https://www.bitesizedbritain.co.uk/charles-keeping-master-of-the-macabre111/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works › Creative written works and worlds › Poetry works › Individual poems › Modernist poems (1900–1945)*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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