ysvlek: love and sad poems

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The poem, set in 18th century England, tells the story of a nameless highwayman who is in love with Bess, a landlord's (innkeeper) daughter. Betrayed to the authorities by Tim, a jealous ostler (stableman), the highwayman escapes ambush when Bess sacrifices her life to warn him. Learning of her death he dies himself in a futile attempt at revenge, shot down on the highway. In the final stanza, the ghosts of the lovers meet again on winter nights

sad love poems

The poem makes effective use of vivid imagery for the background and of repetitious phrases to create the sense of a horseman riding at ease through the rural darkness to a lovers' tryst or of soldiers marching down the same road to ambush him.

sad love poems

Almost half a century later, Noyes wrote: "I think the success of the poem...was because it was not an artificial composition, but was written at an age when I was genuinely excited by that kind of romantic story".