John Masefield

We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull, And we flew the pretty colours of the cross-bones and the skull; We'd a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore,

I hold that when a person dies His soul returns again to earth; Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise

Oh yesterday, I t'ink it was, while cruisin' down the street, I met with Bill. "Hullo," he says, "let's give the girls a treat." We'd red bandanas round our necks 'n' our shrouds new rattled down,

Oh I'll be chewing salted horse and biting flinty bread, And dancing with the stars to watch, upon the fo'c's'le head, Hearkening to the bow-wash and the welter of the tread

We're bound for blue water where the great winds blow, It's time to get the tacks aboard, time for us to go; The crowd's at the capstan and the tune's in the shout,

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,

I had seen flowers come in stony places And kind things done by men with ugly faces, And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,

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,

When I am buried, all my thoughts and acts Will be reduced to lists of dates and facts, And long before this wandering flesh is rotten

In the dark womb where I began My mother's life made me a man. Through all the months of human birth

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

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory,

I Four bells were struck, the watch was called on deck, All work aboard was over for the hour,

Troy Town is covered up with weeds, The rabbits and the pismires brood On broken gold, and shards, and beads

"When I'm discharged at Liverpool 'n' draws my bit o' pay, I won't come to sea no more; I'll court a pretty little lass 'n' have a weddin' day,

Laugh and be merry, remember, better the world with a song, Better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong. Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span.

The Kings go by with jewled crowns; Their horses gleam, their banners shake, their spears are many. The sack of many-peopled towns

Mother Carey? She's the mother o' the witches 'N' all them sort o' rips; She's a fine gell to look at, but the hitch is,

Night is on the downland, on the lonely moorland, On the hills where the wind goes over sheep-bitten turf, Where the bent grass beats upon the unplowed poorland

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

Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying; My dog and I are old, too old for roving. Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying,

On old Cold Crendon's windy tops Grows wintrily Blown Hilcote Copse, Wind-bitten beech with badger barrows,

The meet was at "The Cock and Pye By Charles and Martha Enderby," The grey, three-hundred-year-old inn

One road leads to London, One road leads to Wales, My road leads me seawards

"Goneys an' gullies an' all o' the birds o' the sea They ain't no birds, not really", said Billy the Dane. "Not mollies, nor gullies, nor goneys at all", said he,

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,

I Here in the self is all that man can know Of Beauty, all the wonder, all the power,

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,

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,

Thy place is biggyd above the sterrys cleer, Noon erthely paleys wrouhte in so statly wyse, Com on my freend, my brothir moost enteer,

Out beyond the sunset could I but find the way, Is a sleepy blue laguna which widens to a bay, And there's the Blessed City, so the sailors say,

Here, where we stood together, we three men, Before the war had swept us to the East Three thousand miles away, I stand again

Once in a hundred years the Lemmings come Westward, in search of food, over the snow; Westward until the salt sea drowns them dumb;

Out of the earth to rest or range Perpetual in perpetual change, The unknown passing through the strange.

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,

All day they loitered by the resting ships, Telling their beauties over, taking stock; At night the verdict left my messmate's lips,

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.

Twilight. Red in the West. Dimness. A glow on the wood. The teams plod home to rest.

The Loch Achray was a clipper tall With seven-and-twenty hands in all. Twenty to hand and reef and haul,

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