Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath (Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.) And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain, And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade... (But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.) THE DONKEY When fishes flew and forests walked Some moment when the moon was blood, With monstrous head and sickening cry The devil's walking parody On all four-footed things. The tattered outlaw of the earth, Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: John Masefield John Masefield was born June 1, 1874, in Ledbury, Hertfordshire. He was the son of a lawyer but, being of a rest less disposition, he took to the sea at an early age and became a wanderer for several years. At one time (in 1895, to be exact) he worked for a few months as a sort of third assistant barkeeper and dish-washer in Luke O'Connor's saloon, the Columbia Hotel, in New York City. The place is still there on the corner of Sixth and Greenwich Avenues. The results of his wanderings showed in his early works, Salt-Water Ballads (1902), Ballads (1903), frank and often crude poems of sailors written in their own dialect, and A Mainsail Haul (1905), a collection of short nautical stories. It was not until he published The Everlasting Mercy (1911) that he became famous. Followed quickly by those remarkable long narrative poems, The Widow in the Bye Street (1912), Dauber (1912), and The Daffodil Fields (1913), there is in all of these that peculiar blend of physical exulting and spiritual exaltation that is so striking, and so typical of Masefield. Their very rudeness is lifted to a plane of religious intensity. (See Preface.) The war, in which Masefield served with the Red Cross in France and on the Gallipoli peninsula (of which campaign he wrote a study for the government), softened his style; Good Friday and Other Poems (1916) is as restrained and dignified a collection as that of any of his contemporaries. Reynard the Fox (1919) is the best of his new manner with a return of the old vivacity. Masefield has also written several novels of which Multitude and Solitude (1909) is the most outstanding; half a dozen plays, ranging from the classical solemnity of Pompey the Great to the hot and racy Tragedy of Nan; and one of the freshest, most creative critiques of Shakespeare (1911) in the last generation. A CONSECRATION Not of the princes and prelates with periwigged charioteers Riding triumphantly laurelled to lap the fat of the years, Rather the scorned-the rejected-the men hemmed in with the spears; The men of the tattered battalion which fights till it dies, Dazed with the dust of the battle, the din and the cries. The men with the broken heads and the blood running into their eyes. Not the be-medalled Commander, beloved of the throne, Riding cock-horse to parade when the bugles are blown, But the lads who carried the koppie and cannot be known. Not the ruler for me, but the ranker, the tramp of the road, The slave with the sack on his shoulders pricked on with the goad, The man with too weighty a burden, too weary a load. The sailor, the stoker of steamers, the man with the clout, The chantyman bent at the halliards putting a tune to the shout, The drowsy man at the wheel and the tired look-out. Others may sing of the wine and the wealth and the mirth, The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth;— Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust and scum of the earth! Theirs be the music, the colour, the glory, the gold; Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tales be told. SEA-FEVER 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, And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking. I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the seagulls crying. I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life. To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over. ROUNDING THE HORN 1 (From "Dauber") 1 Then came the cry of "Call all hands on deck!" 1From The Story of a Round-House by John Masefield. Copyright, 1913, by The Macmillan Company. Reprinted by permission of the publishers. Down clattered flying kites and staysails; some "Lay out!" the Bosun yelled. The Dauber laid Darkness came down-half darkness-in a whirl; |