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
Other author posts
Sea Fever
I must go 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 grey mist on the sea’s face, and ...
Reynard The Fox - Part 2
On old Cold Crendon's windy tops Grows wintrily Blown Hilcote Copse, Wind-bitten beech with badger barrows, Where brocks eat wasp-grubs with their marrows, And foxes lie on short-grassed turf,
Hells Pavement
“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,‘N’ settle somewhere down shore; I’ll never fare to sea again a-temptin’ Davy Jones,
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, As it goes singing slow; My road leads to shipping, Where the bronzed sailors go
