Salt-Water Ballads

SALT-WATER BALLADS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO DALLAS · ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO
BY JOHN MASEFIELD New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1915
Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1913 Reprinted April, 1915.
Some of this book was written in my boyhood, all of it in my youth; it is now re-issued, much as it was when first published nearly eleven years ago. J. M. 9th June 1913
‘The mariners are a pleasant people, but little like those in the towns, and they can speak no other language than that used in ships.’
The Licenciate Vidriera.

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.