Cargoes

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amythysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

John Masefield

John Masefield was an English poet and writer, who served as the UK's Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967. Known for his poems reflecting the sea and the English countryside, he was one of the most popular and respected poets of his time. His most famous works include 'Sea-Fever' and 'Cargoes'. Masefield was also an accomplished novelist and playwright. His storytelling skills transcended genres, earning him a lasting place in English literary history.

John Masefield

A Wanderer's Song

John Masefield, Simple Poetry

The Passing Strange

John Masefield, Simple Poetry

Captain Stratton's Fancy

John Masefield, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

A Valediction

We're bound for blue water where the great winds blow,
It's time to get the tacks aboard, time for us to go;
The crowd's at the capstan and the tune's in the shout,
"A long pull, a strong pull, and warp the hooker out."

The bow-wash is eddying, spreading from the bows,
Aloft and loose the topsails and some one give a rouse;
A salt-Atlantic chanty shall be music to the dead,
"A long pull, a strong pull, and the yard to the masthead."

Shrilly squeal the running sheaves, the weather-gear strains,
Such a clatter of chain-sheets, the devil's in the chains;
Over us the bright stars, under us the drowned,
"A long pull, a strong pull, and we're outward bound."

Yonder, round and ruddy, is the mellow old moon,
The red-funnelled tug has gone, and now, sonny, soon

John Masefield

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 wheels kick and the winds song and the white sails shaking,
And a gray mist on the seas face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go 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 sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gulls way and the whales way, where the winds 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 tricks over.

John Masefield

Merchandise

& Eisie April

Dedicated, by gracious permission, to H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES

Merchandise! Merchandise! Tortoiseshell, spices,
Carpets and Indigo sent oer the highseas;
MotheroPearl from the Solomon Isles
Brought by a brigantine ten thousand miles.

Rubber from Zanzibar, tea from NangPo,
Copra from Haiti, and wine from Bordeaux;
Ships, with topgallants and royals unfurled,
Are bringing in freights from the ends of the world

Crazy old windjammers, manned by Malays,
With ratridden bulkheads and creaking old stays,
Reeking of bilge and of paint and of pitch
Thats how these oceangirt islands grew rich:

And tramps, heavy laden, and liners untold
Will lease a new life to a nation grown old.
Merchandise! Merchandise!...

John Milton Hayes

A Pier-Head Chorus

Oh I'll be chewing salted horse and biting flinty bread,
And dancing with the stars to watch, upon the fo'c's'le head,
Hearkening to the bow-wash and the welter of the tread
Of a thousand tons of clipper running free.

For the tug has got the tow-rope and will take us to the Downs,
Her paddles churn the river-wrack to muddy greens and browns,
And I have given river-wrack and all the filth of towns
For the rolling, combing cresters of the sea.

We'll sheet the mizzen-royals home and shimmer down the Bay,
The sea-line blue with billows, the land-line blurred and grey;
The bow-wash will be piling high and thrashing into spray,
As the hooker's fore-foot tramples down the swell.

She'll log a giddy seventeen and rattle out the reel,
The weight of all the run-out li...

John Masefield

Such As In Ships (Brazilian Verses)

Such as in Ships and brittle Barks
Into the Seas descend
Shall learn how wholly on those Arks
Our Victuals do depend.
For, when a Man would bite or sup,
Or buy him Goods or Gear,
He needs must call the Oceans up,
And move an Hemisphere.

Consider, now, that Indian Weed
Which groweth oer the Main,
With Teas and Cottons for our Need,
And Sugar of the Cane,
Their Comings We no more regard
Than daily Corn or Oil:
Yet, when Men waft Them Englandward,
How infinite the Toil!

Nation and People harvesteth
The tropique Lands among,
And Engines of tumultuous Breath
Do draw the Yield along,
Yea, even as by Hecatombs
Which, presently struck down
Into our Navies labouring Wombs
Make Pennyworths in Town.

Rudyard

The Merchantmen

King Solomon drew merchantmen,
Because of his desire
For peacocks, apes, and ivory,
From Tarshish unto Tyre,
With cedars out of Lebanon
Which Hiram rafted down;
But we be only sailormen
That use in London town.

Coastwise, cross-seas, round the world and back again,
Where the flaw shall head us or the full Trade suits,
Plain-sail, storm-sail, lay your board and tack again,
And that's the way we'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots!

We bring no store of ingots,
Of spice or precious stones,
But what we have we gathered
With sweat and aching bones:
In flame beneath the Tropics,
In frost upon the floe,
And jeopardy of every wind
That does between them go.

And some we got by purchase,
And some we had by trade,
And some we ...

Rudyard