John Masefield

TwilightT
Red in the West
Dimness
A glow on the wood

“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,

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;

Out of the earth to rest or
Perpetual in perpetual change,
The unknown passing through the strange
Water and saltness held

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

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 ...

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

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

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 Bucc...

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,

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 clou...

In the dark womb where I
My mother’s life made me a man
Through all the months of human
Her beauty fed my common earth

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
The Golden City of St

I Here in the self is all that man can know Of Beauty, all the wonder, all the power,
All the unearthly colour, all the glow,
Here in the self which withers like a flower;
Here in the self which fades as hours pass,

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 tru...

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,