How to Approach Teaching or Reading The Highwayman
The Highwayman is a narrative poem by Alfred Noyes, first published in 1906 in his collection The Book of Romance. It tells the story of a bandit who loves a landlord's daughter, Bess, and the tragic events that unfold when redcoats capture her and use her as bait. The poem is written in ballad form with a driving rhythm that mimics the sound of hoofbeats. It's one of those pieces that sounds simple on the surface but has structural choices worth paying attention to if you're analyzing it or teaching it. The full text is in the public domain, so it's freely available everywhere. Project Gutenberg has it, as do countless educational sites like Poetry Foundation and various university course pages. The version I recommend is the unedited 1906 text, which runs roughly 345 lines across fourteen stanzas. Some anthologies cut parts of it, and the abridged versions lose the pacing that makes the poem work in the first place. If you're assigning it to students or reading it yourself, get the complete thing. I remember trying to get a classroom of tenth graders to sit through the full poem one year because the textbook had trimmed it down to twelve stanzas. The students were confused by the jump cuts. The emotional beats didn't land. What I did was project the full original text on the board and have them read it aloud in sections, assigning roles for the narrator, Bess, and the highwayman. Having them voice the alternating rhyme scheme made the rhythm click for them in a way silent reading never would. It took about twenty minutes of setup but cut their comprehension time in half compared to previous years.
The Structure and Why It Matters
Noyes wrote this in a variant of the ballad stanza, but he bends the traditional four-line pattern with longer lines and a heavy foot. The meter is anapestic tetrameter with some variations, giving it that galloping feel. Each stanza has four lines with an AABA rhyme scheme. The repeated A line acts almost like a chorus, coming back at the start and end of each stanza to anchor the reader while the narrative moves forward on the B line. Most people miss that the A-line refrain isn't just decorative. It's doing structural work. Lines like "Over the cobblestones he clattered" and "With a coachfull of gold he was travelling" appear at the beginning and end of stanzas to create a sense of motion and return. The poem moves forward while simultaneously looping back, which mirrors the highwayman's constant comings and goings. When you teach or study this, pointing out the refrain pattern helps readers understand why the poem feels like a ride rather than a static story. The meter itself is another thing that trips people up. Readers tend to rush through the anapestic feet because they sound bouncy at first glance. But Noyes uses metrical variation to control pace. When the redcoats arrive, the rhythm tightens. During the romance sections between the highwayman and Bess, the lines stretch out a bit. If you're performing or recording this poem, pay attention to those shifts instead of maintaining one steady tempo throughout. It makes a noticeable difference in how the tension lands.
The Themes You Actually Need to Address
Love and loyalty are the obvious themes, but the poem also deals with class, betrayal, and the cost of devotion. Bess isn't a passive figure waiting to be rescued. She makes an active choice to warn her lover, pressing the musket to her breast to fire a signal that ultimately kills her. The highwayman returns not for revenge but because he cannot leave her, and he dies trying to reach her. These aren't subtle points, but they get flattened in most classroom discussions that reduce the poem to a simple romance tragedy. The religious imagery is worth noting too. Noyes invokes the "King in his glory" early on, which some readers interpret as God or divine judgment overseeing the events. The pub is called "The Yeoman Redcoat," and the setting blurs between the earthly and the sacred in ways that matter for interpretation. I've seen students completely miss the religious layer because teachers treat it as a straightforward love story. It isn't. The poem frames Bess's sacrifice in language that echoes martyrdom, and the highwayman's final ride has something approaching holy obsession about it. There's also the question of the highwayman as a romantic figure versus a criminal. Noyes clearly wants us to sympathize with him, dressing him in colorful language and making him brave and loyal. But he's a thief who robs coaches. The poem doesn't shy away from that, and the tension between his criminality and his nobility is part of what makes the story work. Don't gloss over it.
Get the Full Details
Common Pitfalls When Working With This Text
The biggest issue I see is people treating the historical context as secondary. The poem is set in the early eighteenth century, during a period when road robbery was a genuine problem in England. The redcoats represent actual military force used to patrol the roads. Understanding that context changes how you read the power dynamics. Bess isn't just caught between a lover and soldiers. She's caught between a criminal underworld and state authority, and neither side has her best interests at heart. Another pitfall is the gender reading. Bess gets reduced to a tragic girl who waits and dies, but she's the one who breaks the deadlock. She chooses to signal the highwayman knowing it will get her killed. The highwayman rides into certain death because of her choice. She drives the plot. If your analysis or lesson plan treats her as purely victimized, you're missing half the poem. I also ran into a problem once where a study guide I was using claimed the poem's rhyme scheme was ABCB. That's wrong. It's AABA, and the distinction matters because the repeated line is what creates the refrain effect. Getting the rhyme scheme wrong throws off any analysis of the structure. Always verify the technical details yourself rather than relying on secondary sources. They're often careless with this particular poem because it's assigned so widely.
How to Use This Poem Effectively
If you're teaching it, start with the sound. Read it aloud first. Let students hear the rhythm before you dissect meaning. The poem demands to be heard. I've found that a single reading where you commit to the performance aspect, with proper pacing and emphasis on the refrains, makes the rest of the analysis ten times easier. Students who struggle with the text usually just haven't heard it properly yet. Pairing it with something like Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" works well if you're building a unit on narrative poetry. Both use ballad forms, both deal with transgression and consequence, and both have unreliable or emotionally driven narrators. The contrast between Noyes's accessible style and Coleridge's more complex symbolism gives students a spectrum to work across. For independent reading, the poem works best in one sitting. It's not a piece you digest gradually. The momentum carries you through, and stopping between sections breaks the spell. I'd suggest reading it straight through first, then going back for analysis. The emotional impact you get from the initial read informs everything else you do with the text afterward.
The Highwayman remains one of the most anthologized poems in English simply because it's compelling. It's also one of the most misunderstood when people stop at the surface level. The craft is there if you look for it, and the emotional core holds up under scrutiny. Just don't skim it.
