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." "An' merry's the life they are living.
They settle and dip, They fishes, they never stands watches, they waggle their wings;
When a ship comes by, they fly to look at the ship To see how the nowaday mariners manages things." "When freezing aloft in a snorter I tell you I wish — (Though maybe it ain't like a Christian) — I wish I could be A haughty old copper-bound albatross dipping for fish And coming the proud over all o' the birds o' the sea."
John Masefield
Other author posts
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
Twilight
Twilight it is, and the far woods are dim, and the rooks cry and call Down in the valley the lamps, and the mist, and a star over all, There by the rick, where they thresh, is the drone at an end, Twilight it is, and I travel the road with my...
Laugh and be Merry
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 Laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man
The Island of Skyros
Here, where we stood together, we three men, Before the war had swept us to the East Three thousand miles away, I stand again And hear the bells, and breathe, and go to feast We trod the same path, to the selfsame place,
