The Silver Penny

'Sailorman, I'll give to you
    My bright silver penny,
If out to sea you'll sail me
    And my dear sister Jenny.'

'Get in, young sir, I'll sail ye
    And your dear sister Jenny,
But pay she shall her golden locks
    Instead of your penny.'

They sail away, they sail away,
    O fierce the winds blew!
The foam flew in clouds,
    And dark the night grew!

And all the wild sea-water
    Climbed steep into the boat;
Back to the shore again
    Sail they will not.

Drowned is the sailorman,
    Drowned is sweet Jenny,
And drowned in the deep sea
    A bright silver penny.

Walter De La Mare

Walter De La Mare was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist, best remembered for his works for children and his poem "The Listeners". Born in 1873 in Charlton, Kent, De La Mare's unique blend of haunting, dreamlike imagery and masterful command of language earned him a lasting place in English literature. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1953, and his works continue to be celebrated for their ethereal and evocative quality.

Walter De La Mare

Sam's Three Wishes; Or Life's Little Whirligig

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Shade

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Dunce

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Alulvan

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

English

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The Englishman

I met a sailor in the woods,
    A silver ring wore he,
His hair hung black, his eyes shone blue,
    And thus he said to me: -

'What country, say, of this round earth,
    What shore of what salt sea,
Be this, my son, I wander in,
    And looks so strange to me?'

Says I, 'O foreign sailorman,
    In England now you be,
This is her wood, and this her sky,
    And that her roaring sea.'

He lifts his voice yet louder,
    'What smell be this,' says he,
'My nose on the sharp morning air
    Snuffs up so greedily?'

Says I, 'It is wild roses
    Do smell so winsomely,
And winy briar too,' says I,
    'That in these thickets be.'

'And oh!' says he, 'what leetle bird
    Is singing in yon high tree,
So every...

Walter De La Mare

A Ballad Of John Silver

We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull,
And we flew the pretty colours of the cross-bones and the skull;
We'd a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore,
And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore.

We'd a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted ship,
We had each a brace of pistols and a cutlass at the hip;
It's a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored,
But we chased the goodly merchant-men and laid their ships aboard.

Then the dead men fouled the scuppers and the wounded filled the chains,
And the paint-work all was spatter-dashed with other people's brains,
She was boarded, she was looted, she was scuttled till she sank,
And the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank.

O! then ...

John Masefield

The Wreck Of The Hesperus

It was the schooner Hesperus,
    That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
    To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
    Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
    That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
    His pipe was in his month,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
    The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailor,
    Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
    For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
    And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
    And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Captain Lean

Out of the East a hurricane
    Swept down on Captain Lean -
That mariner and gentleman
    Will ne'er again be seen.

He sailed his ship against the foes
    Of his own country dear,
But now in the trough of the billows
    An aimless course doth steer.

Powder was violets to his nostril,
    Sweet the din of the fighting-line,
Now he is flotsam on the seas,
    And his bones are bleached with brine.

The stars move up along the sky,
    The moon she shines so bright,
And in that solitude the foam
    Sparkles unearthly white.

This is the tomb of Captain Lean,
    Would a straiter please his soul?
I trow he sleeps in peace,
    Howsoever the billows roll!

Walter De La Mare

Sea-Magic

TO R.I.


My heart faints in me for the distant sea.
The roar of London is the roar of ire
The lion utters in his old desire
For Libya out of dim captivity.
The long bright silver of Cheapside I see,
Her gilded weathercocks on roof and spire
Exulting eastward in the western fire;
All things recall one heart-sick memory: -

Ever the rustle of the advancing foam,
The surges' desolate thunder, and the cry
As of some lone babe in the whispering sky;
Ever I peer into the restless gloom
To where a ship clad dim and loftily
Looms steadfast in the wonder of her home.

Walter De La Mare

Sam

When Sam goes back in memory,
    It is to where the sea
Breaks on the shingle, emerald-green,
    In white foam, endlessly;
He says - with small brown eye on mine -
    "I used to keep awake,
And lean from my window in the moon,
    Watching those billows break.
And half a million tiny hands,
    And eyes, like sparks of frost,
Would dance and come tumbling into the moon,
    On every breaker tossed.
And all across from star to star,
    I've seen the watery sea,
With not a single ship in sight,
    Just ocean there, and me;
And heard my father snore. And once,
    As sure as I'm alive,
Out of those wallowing, moon-flecked waves
    I saw a mermaid dive;
Head and shoulders above the wave,
    Plain as I now see you,
Combing her h...

Walter De La Mare