Poems by John Masefield

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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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.

by 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.

by 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.

by John Masefield

The 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 shy-eyed delicate deer troop down to the brook to drink

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

by John Masefield

The Golden City of St Mary

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 &mdash so the sailors say &mdash

The Golden City of St. Mary.

It's built of fair marble &mdash white &mdash without a stain,

And in the cool twilight when the sea-winds wane

The bells chime faintly, like a soft warm rain,

In the Golden City of St. Mary.

by John Masefield

Mother Carey (As told Me by the Bo'sun)

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,

She's a sight too fond of ships;

She lives upon an iceberg to the norred,

'N' her man he's Davy Jones,

by John Masefield

CLM

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.

by 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'll be going, going, until I meet the tide.

by John Masefield

Sea Change

"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,

"But simply the spirits of mariners livin' again."

"Them birds goin' fishin' is nothin' but the souls o' the drowned,

Souls o' the drowned, an' the kicked as are never no more

An' that there haughty old albatross cruisin' around,

Belike he's Admiral Nelson or Admiral Noah."

by John Masefield

A Night At Dago Tom's

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,

So we filled a couple of Santy Cruz and cleared for Sailor Town.

We scooted south with a press of sail till we fetched to a caboose,

The "Sailor's Rest," by Dago Tom, alongside "Paddy's Goose."

Red curtains to the windies, ay, 'n' white sand to the floor,

And an old blind fiddler liltin' the tune of "Lowlands No More."

by John Masefield

The Tarry Buccaneer

I'm going to be a pirate with a bright brass pivot-gun,

And an island in the Spanish Main beyond the setting sun,

And a silver flagon full of red wine to drink when work is done,

Like a fine old salt-sea scavenger, like a tarry Buccaneer.

With a sandy creek to careen in, and a pig-tailed Spanish mate,

And under my main-hatches a sparkling merry freight

Of doubloons and double moidores and pieces of eight,

Like a fine old salt-sea scavenger, like a tarry Buccaneer.

by John Masefield

Biography

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

The dates which made me will be all forgotten;

And none will know the gleam there used to be

About the feast days freshly kept by me,

But men will call the golden hour of bliss

'About this time,' or 'shortly after this.'

by John Masefield