Sea Fever

I MUST down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

John Masefield

Cargoes

QUINQUIREME of Nineveh from distant Ophir,

Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,

With a cargo of ivory,

And apes and peacocks,

Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,

Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,

With a cargo of diamonds,

Emeralds, amythysts,

Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,

Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,

With a cargo of Tyne coal,

Road-rails, pig-lead,

Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

John Masefield

A Wanderer's Song

A WIND'S in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels,

I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;

I hunger for the sea's edge, the limit of the land,

Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.

Oh I'll be going, leaving the noises of the street,

To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet;

To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride,

Oh I'l be going, going, until I meet the tide.

And first I'll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls,

The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls,

The songs at the capstan at the hooker warping out,

And then the heart of me'll know I'm there or thereabout.

Oh I am sick of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick,

For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick;

And I'll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels,

For a wind's in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels.

John Masefield

The West Wind

IT'S a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries;

I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.

For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills.

And April's in the west wind, and daffodils.

It's a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine,

Apple orchards blossom there, and the air's like wine.

There is cool green grass there, where men may lie at rest,

And the thrushes are in song there, fluting from the nest.

"Will ye not come home brother? ye have been long away,

It's April, and blossom time, and white is the may;

And bright is the sun brother, and warm is the rain,--

Will ye not come home, brother, home to us again?

"The young corn is green, brother, where the rabbits run.

It's blue sky, and white clouds, and warm rain and sun.

It's song to a man's soul, brother, fire to a man's brain,

To hear the wild bees and see the merry spring again.

"Larks are singing in the west, brother, above the green wheat,

So will ye not come home, brother, and rest your tired feet?

I've a balm for bruised hearts, brother, sleep for aching eyes,"

Says the warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries.

It's the white road westwards is the road I must tread

To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest for heart and head,

To the violets, and the warm hearts, and the thrushes' song,

In the fine land, the west land, the land where I belong.

John Masefield

Sonnet

FLESH, I have knocked at many a dusty door,

Gone down full many a midnight lane,

Probed in old walls and felt along the floor,

Pressed in blind hope the lighted window-pane,

But useless all, though sometimes when the moon

Was full in heaven and the sea was full,

Along my body's alleys came a tune

Played in the tavern by the Beautiful.

Then for an instant I have felt at point

To find and seize her, whosoe'er she be,

Whether some saint whose glory doth anoint

Those whom she loves, or but a part of me,

Or something that the things not understood

Make for their uses out of flesh and blood.

John Masefield

Lollingdon Downs VIII

THE Kings go by with jewled crowns;

Their horses gleam, their banners shake, their spears are many.

The sack of many-peopled towns

Is all their dream:

The way they take

Leaves but a ruin in the brake,

And, in the furrow that the plowmen make,

A stampless penny, a tale, a dream.

The Merchants reckon up their gold,

Their letters come, their ships arrive, their freights are glories;

The profits of their treasures sold

They tell and sum;

Their foremen drive

Their servants, starved to half-alive,

Whose labors do but make the earth a hive

Of stinking stories; a tale, a dream.

The Priests are singing in their stalls,

Their singing lifts, their incense burns, their praying clamors;

Yet God is as the sparrow falls,

The ivy drifts;

The votive urns

Are all left void when Fortune turns,

The god is but a marble for the kerns

To break with hammers; a tale, a dream.

O Beauty, let me know again

The green earth cold, the April rain, the quiet waters figuring sky,

The one star risen.

So shall I pass into the feast

Not touched by King, Merchant, or Priest;

Know the red spirit of the beast,

Be the green grain;

Escape from prison.

John Masefield

Trade Winds

IN the harbor, in the island, in the Spanish Seas,

Are the tiny white houses and the orange trees,

And day-long, night-long, the cool and pleasant breeze

Of the steady Trade Winds blowing.

There is the red wine, the nutty Spanish ale,

The shuffle of the dancers, the old salt's tale,

The squeaking fiddle, and the soughing in the sail

Of the steady Trade Winds blowing.

And o' nights there's fire-flies and the yellow moon,

And in the ghostly palm-trees the sleepy tune

Of the quiet voice calling me, the long low croon

Of the steady Trade Winds blowing.

John Masefield

On Eastnor Knoll

SILENT are the woods, and the dim green boughs are

Hushed in the twilight: yonder, in the path through

The apple orchard, is a tired plough-boy

Calling the cows home.

A bright white star blinks, the pale moon rounds, but

Still the red, lurid wreckage of the sunset

Smoulders in smoky fire, and burns on

The misty hill-tops.

Ghostly it grows, and darker, the burning

Fades into smoke, and now the gusty oaks are

A silent army of phantoms thronging

A land of shadows.

John Masefield

The Wanderer

ALL day they loitered by the resting ships,

Telling their beauties over, taking stock;

At night the verdict left my messmate's lips,

"The Wanderer is the finest ship in dock."

I had not seen her, but a friend, since drowned,

Drew her, with painted ports, low, lovely, lean,

Saying, "The Wanderer, clipper, outward bound,

The loveliest ship my eyes have ever seen--

"Perhaps to-morrow you will see her sail.

She sails at sunrise": but the morrow showed

No Wanderer setting forth for me to hail;

Far down the stream men pointed where she rode,

Rode the great trackway to the sea, dim, dim,

Already gone before the stars were gone.

I saw her at the sea-line's smoky rim

Grow swiftly vaguer as they towed her on.

Soon even her masts were hidden in the haze

Beyond the city; she was on her course

To trample billows for a hundred days;

That afternoon the northerner gathered force,

Blowing a small snow from a point of east.

"Oh, fair for her," we said, "to take her south."

And in our spirits, as the wind increased,

We saw her there, beyond the river mouth,

Setting her side-lights in the wildering dark,

To glint upon mad water, while the gale

Roared like a battle, snapping like a shark,

And drunken seamen struggled with the sail.

While with sick hearts her mates put out of mind

Their little children, left astern, ashore,

And the gale's gathering made the darkness' blind,

Water and air one intermingled roar.

Then we forgot her, for the fiddlers played,

Dancing and singing held our merry crew;

The old ship moaned a little as she swayed.

It blew all night, oh, bitter hard it blew!

So that at midnight I was called on deck

To keep an anchor-watch: I heard the sea

Roar past in white procession filled with wreck;

Intense bright stars burned frosty over me,

And the Greek brig beside us dipped and dipped,

White to the muzzle like a half-tide rock,

Drowned to the mainmast with the seas she shipped;

Her cable-swivels clanged at every shock.

And like a never-dying force, the wind

Roared till we shouted with it, roared until

Its vast virality of wrath was thinned,

Had beat its fury breathless and was still.

By dawn the gale had dwindled into flaw,

A glorious morning followed: with my friend

I climbed the fo'c's'le-head to see; we saw

The waters hurrying shoreward without end.

Haze blotted out the river's lowest reach;

Out of the gloom the steamers, passing by,

Called with their sirens, hooting their sea-speech;

Out of the dimness others made reply.

And as we watched, there came a rush of feet

Charging the fo'c's'le till the hatchway shook.

Men all about us thrust their way, or beat,

Crying, "Wanderer! Down the river! Look!"

I looked with them towards the dimness; there

Gleamed like a spirit striding out of night,

A full-rigged ship unutterably fair,

Her masts like trees in winter, frosty-bright.

Foam trembled at her bows like wisps of wool;

She trembled as she towed. I had not dreamed

That work of man could be so beautiful,

In its own presence and in what it seemed.

"So, she is putting back again," I said.

"How white with frost her yards are on the fore."

One of the men about me answer made,

"That is not frost, but all her sails are tore,

"Torn into tatters, youngster, in the gale;

Her best foul-weather suit gone." It was true,

Her masts were white with rags of tattered sail

Many as gannets when the fish are due.

Beauty in desolation was her pride,

Her crowned array a glory that had been;

She faltered tow'rds us like a swan that died,

But altogether ruined she was still a queen.

"Put back with all her sails gone," went the word;

Then, from her signals flying, rumor ran,

"The sea that stove her boats in killed her third;

She has been gutted and has lost a man."

So, as though stepping to a funeral march,

She passed defeated homewards whence she came,

Ragged with tattered canvas white as starch,

A wild bird that misfortune had made tame.

She was refitted soon: another took

The dead man's office; then the singers hove

Her capstan till the snapping hawsers shook;

Out, with a bubble at her bows, she drove.

Again they towed her seawards, and again

We, watching, praised her beauty, praised her trim,

Saw her fair house-flag flutter at the main,

And slowly saunter seawards, dwindling dim;

And wished her well, and wondered, as she died,

How, when her canvas had been sheeted home,

Her quivering length would sweep into her stride,

Making the greenness milky with her foam.

But when we rose next morning, we discerned

Her beauty once again a shattered thing;

Towing to dock the Wanderer returned,

A wounded sea-bird with a broken wing.

A spar was gone, her rigging's disarray

Told of a worse disaster than the last;

Like draggled hair dishevelled hung the stay,

Drooping and beating on the broken mast.

Half-mast upon her flagstaff hung her flag;

Word went among us how the broken spar

Had gored her captain like an angry stag,

And killed her mate a half-day from the bar.

She passed to dock along the top of flood.

An old man near me shook his head and swore:

"Like a bad woman, she has tasted blood--

There'll be no trusting in her any more."

We thought it truth, and when we saw her there

Lying in dock, beyond, across the stream,

We would forget that we had called her fair,

We thought her murderess and the past a dream.

And when she sailed again, we watched in awe,

Wondering what bloody act her beauty planned,

What evil lurked behind the thing we saw,

What strength there was that thus annulled man's hand,

How next its triumph would compel man's will

Into compliance with external fate,

How next the powers would use her to work ill

On suffering men; we had not long to wait.

For soon the outcry of derision rose,

"Here comes the Wanderer!" the expected cry.

Guessing the cause, our mockings joined with those

Yelled from the shipping as they towed her by.

She passed us close, her seamen paid no heed

To what was called: they stood, a sullen group,

Smoking and spitting, careless of her need,

Mocking the orders given from the poop.

Her mates and boys were working her; we stared.

What was the reason of this strange return,

This third annulling of the thing prepared?

No outward evil could our eyes discern.

Only like one who having formed a plan

Beyond the pitch of common minds, she sailed,

Mocked and deserted by the common man,

Made half divine to me for having failed.

We learned the reason soon: below the town

A stay had parted like a snapping reed,

"Warning," the men thought, "not to take her down."

They took the omen, they would not proceed.

Days passed before another crew would sign.

The Wanderer lay in dock alone, unmanned,

Feared as a thing possessed by powers malign,

Bound under curses not to leave the land.

But under passing Time fear passes too;

That terror passed, the sailors' hearts grew bold.

We learned in time that she had found a crew

And was bound out southwards as of old.

And in contempt we thought, "A little while

Will bring her back again, dismantled, spoiled.

It is herself; she cannot change her style;

She has the habit now of being foiled."

So when a ship appeared among the haze,

We thought, "The Wanderer back again"; but no,

No Wanderer showed for many, many days,

Her passing lights made other waters glow.

But we would oft think and talk of her,

Tell newer hands her story, wondering, then,

Upon what ocean she was Wanderer,

Bound to the cities built by foreign men.

And one by one our little conclave thinned,

Passed into ships and sailed and so away,

To drown in some great roaring of the wind,

Wanderers themselves, unhappy fortune's prey.

And Time went by me making memory dim,

Yet still I wondered if the Wanderer fared

Still pointing to the unreached ocean's rim,

Brightening the water where her breast was bared.

And much in ports abroad I eyed the ships,

Hoping to see her well-remembered form

Come with a curl of bubbles at her lips

Bright to her berth, the sovereign of the storm.

I never did, and many years went by,

Then, near a Southern port, one Christmas Eve,

I watched a gale go roaring through the sky,

Making the cauldrons of clouds upheave.

Then the wrack tattered and the stars appeared,

Millions of stars that seemed to speak in fire;

A byre cock cried aloud that morning neared,

The swinging wind-vane flashed upon the spire.

And soon men looked upon a glittering earth,

Intensely sparkling like a world new-born;

Only to look was spiritual birth,

So bright the raindrops ran along the thorn

So bright they were, that one could almost pass

Beyond their twinkling to the source, and know

The glory pushing in the blade of grass,

That hidden soul which makes the flowers grow.

That soul was there apparent, not revealed,

Unearthly meanings covered every tree,

That wet grass grew in an immortal field,

Those waters fed some never-wrinkled sea.

The scarlet berries in the hedge stood out

Like revelations but the tongue unknown;

Even in the brooks a joy was quick: the trout

Rushed in a dumbness dumb to me alone.

All of the valley was loud with brooks;

I walked the morning, breasting up the fells,

Taking again lost childhood from the rooks,

Whose cawing came above the Christmas bells.

I had not walked that glittering world before,

But up the hill a prompting came to me,

"This line of upland runs along the shore:

Beyond the hedgerow I shall see the sea."

And on the instant from beyond away

The long familiar sound, a ship's bell, broke

The hush below me in the unseen bay.

Old memories came, that inner prompting spoke.

And bright above the hedge a seagull's wings

Flashed and were steady upon empty air.

"A Power unseen," I cried, "prepares these things;

Those are her bells, the Wanderer is there."

So, hurrying to the hedge and looking down,

I saw a mighty bay's wind-crinkled blue

Ruffling the image of a tranquill town,

With lapsing waters glimmering as they grew.

And near me in the road the shipping swung,

So stately and so still in such a great peace

That like to drooping crests their colors hung,

Only their shadows trembled without cease.

I did but glance upon these anchored ships.

Even as my thought had told, I saw her plain;

Tense, like a supple athlete with lean hips,

Swiftness at pause, the Wanderer come again--

Come as of old a queen, untouched by Time,

Resting the beauty that no seas could tire,

Sparkling, as though the midnight's rain were rime,

Like a man's thought transfigured into fire,

And as I looked, one of her men began

To sing some simple tune of Christmas day;

Among her crew the song spread, man to man,

Until the singing rang across the bay;

And soon in other anchored ships the men

Joined in the singing with clear throats, until

The farm-boy heard it up the windy glen,

Above the noise of sheep-bells on the hill.

Over the water came the lifted song--

Blind pieces in a mighty game we sing;

Life's battle is a conquest for the strong;

The meaning shows in the defeated thing.

John Masefield

A Creed

I HOLD that when a person dies

His soul returns again to earth;

Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise

Another mother gives him birth.

With sturdier limbs and brighter brain

The old soul takes the road again.

Such is my own belief and trust;

This hand, this hand that holds the pen,

Has many a hundred times been dust

And turned, as dust, to dust again;

These eyes of mine have blinked and shown

In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon.

All that I rightly think or do,

Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast,

Is curse or blessing justly due

For sloth or effort in the past.

My life's a statement of the sum

Of vice indulged, or overcome.

I know that in my lives to be

My sorry heart will ache and burn,

And worship, unavailingly,

The woman whom I used to spurn,

And shake to see another have

The love I spurned, the love she gave.

And I shall know, in angry words,

In gibes, and mocks, and many a tear,

A carrion flock of homing-birds,

The gibes and scorns I uttered here.

The brave word that I failed to speak

Will brand me dastard on the cheek.

And as I wander on the roads

I shall be helped and healed and blessed;

Dear words shall cheer and be as goads

To urge to heights before unguessed.

My road shall be the road I made;

All that I gave shall be repaid.

So shall I fight, so shall I tread,

In this long war beneath the stars;

So shall a glory wreathe my head,

So shall I faint and show the scars,

Until this case, this clogging mould,

Be smithied all to kingly gold.

John Masefield

Roadways

ONE road leads to London,

One road leads to Wales,

My road leads me seawards

To the white dipping sails.

One road leads to the river,

And it goes singing slow;

My road leads to shipping,

Where the bronzed sailors go.

Leads me, lures me, calls me

To salt green tossing sea;

A road without earth's road-dust

Is the right road for me.

A wet road heaving, shining,

And wild with seagull's cries,

A mad salt sea-wind blowing

The salt spray in my eyes.

My road calls me, lures me

West, east, south, and north;

Most roads lead men homewards,

My road leads me forth.

To add more miles to the tally

Of grey miles left behind,

In quest of that one beauty

God put me here to find.

John Masefield

Beauty

I HAVE seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills

Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain:

I have seen the lady April bringing the daffodils,

Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.

I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea,

And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships;

But the loveliest thing of beauty God ever has shown to me,

Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips.

John Masefield

C.L.M.

IN the dark womb where I began

My mother's life made me a man.

Through all the months of human birth

Her beauty fed my common earth.

I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir,

But through the death of some of her.

Down in the darkness of the grave

She cannot see the life she gave.

For all her love, she cannot tell

Whether I use it ill or well,

Nor knock at dusty doors to find

Her beauty dusty in the mind.

If the grave's gates could be undone,

She would not know her little son,

I am so grown. If we should meet

She would pass by me in the street,

Unless my soul's face let her see

My sense of what she did for me.

What have I done to keep in mind

My debt to her and womankind?

What woman's happier life repays

Her for those months of wretched days?

For all my mouthless body leeched

Ere Birth's releasing hell was reached?

What have I done, or tried, or said

In thanks to that dear woman dead?

Men triumph over women still,

Men trample women's rights at will,

And man's lust roves the world untamed.

*         *         *         *

O grave, keep shut lest I be shamed.

John Masefield

The Seekers

FRIENDS and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blessed abode,

But the hope of the City of God at the other end of the road.

Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace of mind,

For we go seeking a city that we shall never find.

There is no solace on earth for us--for such as we--

Who search for a hidden city that we shall never see.

Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain,

And the watch fire under stars, and sleep, and the road again.

We seek the City of God, and the haunt where beauty dwells,

And we find the noisy mart and the sound of burial bells.

Never the golden city, where radiant people meet,

But the dolorous town where mourners are going about the street.

We travel the dusty road till the light of the day is dim,

And sunset shows us spires away on the world's rim.

We travel from dawn to dusk, till the day is past and by,

Seeking the Holy City beyond the rim of the sky.

Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blest abode,

But the hope of the City of God at the other end of the road.

John Masefield

Captain Stratton's Fancy

OH some are fond of red wine, and some are fond of white,

And some are all for dancing by the pale moonlight;

But rum alone's the tipple, and the heart's delight

Of the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French,

And some'll swallow tay and stuff fit only for a wench;

But I'm for right Jamaica till I roll beneath the bench,

Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

Oh some are for the lily, and some are for the rose,

But I am for the sugar-cane that in Jamaica grows;

For it's that that makes the bonny drink to warm my copper nose,

Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

Oh some are fond of fiddles, and a song well sung,

And some are all for music for to lilt upon the tongue;

But mouths were made for tankards, and for sucking at the bung,

Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

Oh some are fond of dancing, and some are fond of dice,

And some are all for red lips, and pretty lasses' eyes;

But a right Jamaica puncheon is a finer prize

To the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

Oh some that's good and godly ones they hold that it's a sin

To troll the jolly bowl around, and let the dollars spin;

But I'm for toleration and for drinking at an inn,

Says the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

Oh some are sad and wretched folk that go in silken suits,

And there's a mort of wicked rogues that live in good reputes;

So I'm for drinking honestly, and dying in my boots,

Like an old bold mate of Henry Morgan.

John Masefield

Tewkesbury Road

IT is good to be out on the road, and going one knows not where,

Going through meadow and village, one knows not whither or why;

Through the grey light drift of the dust, in the keen cool rush of the air,

Under the flying white clouds, and the broad blue lift of the sky.

And to halt at the chattering brook, in a tall green fern at the brink

Where the harebell grows, and the gorse, and the foxgloves purple and white;

Where the shifty-eyed delicate deer troop down to the brook to drink

When the stars are mellow and large at the coming on of the night.

O, to feel the beat of the rain, and the homely smell of the earth,

Is a tune for the blood to jig to, and joy past power of words;

And the blessed green comely meadows are all a-ripple with mirth

At the noise of the lambs at play and the dear wild cry of the birds.

John Masefield