SOURCE: "Round about Parnassus," in The Saturday Review Of Literature, December 6, 1930, p. 420.

In the following review, Benét discussed two successful aspects of Noyes's poetry: its lyrical quality and metrical "accomplishment."

There are two books before us by Alfred Noyes, published by the Frederick A. Stokes Company. The first is Forty Singing Seamen and Other Poems, designed and decorated by Elizabeth MacKinstry, the second is the third volume of Mr. Noyes's trilogy, The Torch-Bearers, this one being entitled The Last Voyage. We have always admired Mr. Noyes's best work; though he has been a most copious writer and has frequently displayed nothing more than facility. He has even tried his hand at short stories and essays and at least one light novel. But his true forte remains what it was in the beginning when we first read "The Barrel-Organ," in which this poet whose poems are, at least...