Analyzing Alfred Noyes 'The Highwayman'

The poem “The Highwayman '' by Alfred Noyes is how a highwayman and his love Bess loved each other so much that they sacrificed themselves. Both characters end up together in their afterlife. The poem “Annabel Lee '' by Edgar Allan Poe is how the speaker loves Annabel Lee so much that even when she passed, he still loved her. The speaker loved Annabel Lee so much that he slept near her tomb. Noyes describes his poem as acrificial love when Poe expressed his poem as obsessive love.

Noyes explains how this poem utilizes sacrificial love. “…and warned him-with her death.” (75) Here, Bess sacrificed herself so the highway man can hear the musket’s gunshot and be warned and save himself. Alfred Noyes demonstrates that Bess would do anything for her love and she killed herself for him. “Back he spurred like a madman, shouting a curse to the sky… When they shot him down on the highway, Down like a dog on the highway, And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace and his throat.” (85) Here, the highwayman heard the

“But our love was stronger by far than the love of those who were older than we-... Nor the demons down under the sea, can every dissever my souls from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee.” (30) Here, the speaker talks about how he loves Annabel Lee so much and talks about how his love for her is like no other. Edgar Allen Poe states that the speaker was so mad his love died, he started to say how he and his wife had the most love for each other than anyone else and he was obsessed. “And so, all night-tide, I lie down by the side… In her tomb by the sounding sea.” Here, the speaker sleeps next to Annabel Lee’s tomb which makes him obsessed with her. Poe displays that the obsessed speaker doesn’t go to his house to rest, but he sleeps right next to her grave. The speaker was obsessed with his love so much, he did drastic things just to be with Annabel Lee’s dead