New to the change of death, yet hither urged.
Then from the hidden waters something surged—
Mournful, despairing, great, greater than speech,
A noise like one slow wave on a still beach.
After that, if only for the pleasure of quoting them, recall Swinburne's lines:
Where beyond the extreme sea-wall and between the remote sea-gates,
Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death waits.
The wonder of our English tongue is never more resounding than when English poets echo the tumult of the sea. Mr. Masefield is not so much an innovator as an initiate into a great poetic tradition, the tradition of a race of sailors and chantey-makers who began with "The Seafarer" or long before that, and shall not end with "Dauber." The sea is in Masefield's blood and in his personal experience. Who but an English poet would have ended "The Tragedy of Pompey the Great" with a chantey to the tune of "Hanging Johnny"?
SHAKESPEARE AND THE SCRIBES