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
SALT-WATER
BALLADS
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
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| [A CONSECRATION] | |
| Not of the princes and prelates with periwigged charioteers. | [1] |
| [THE YARN OF THE ‘LOCH ACHRAY’] | |
| The ‘Loch Achray’ was a clipper tall. | [3] |
| [SING A SONG O’ SHIPWRECK] | |
| He lolled on a bollard, a sun-burned son of the sea | [7] |
| [BURIAL PARTY] | |
| ‘He’s deader ’n nails,’ the fo’c’s’le said, ‘ ’n’ gone to his long sleep’ | [11] |
| [BILL] | |
| He lay dead on the cluttered deck and stared at the cold skies | [14] |
| [FEVER SHIP] | |
| There’ll be no weepin gells ashore when our ship sails | [15] |
| [FEVER-CHILLS] | |
| He tottered out of the alleyway with cheeks the colour of paste | [17] |
| [ONE OF THE BO’SUN’S YARNS] | |
| Loafin’ around in Sailor Town, a-bluin’ o’ my advance | [19] |
| [HELLS PAVEMENT] | |
| ‘When I’m discharged in Liverpool ’n’ draws my bit o’ pay’ | [25] |
| [SEA-CHANGE] | |
| ‘Goneys an’ gullies an’ all o’ the birds o’ the sea’ | [27] |
| [HARBOUR-BAR] | |
| All in the feathered palm-tree tops the bright green parrots screech | [29] |
| [THE TURN OF THE TIDE] | |
| An’ Bill can have my sea-boots, Nigger Jim can have my knife | [31] |
| [ONE OF WALLY’S YARNS] | |
| The watch was up on the topsail-yard a-making fast the sail | [33] |
| [A VALEDITION (LIVERPOOL DOCKS)] | |
| Is there anything as I can do ashore for you | [35] |
| [A NIGHT AT DAGO TOM’S] | |
| Oh yesterday, I t’ink it was, while cruisin’ down the street | [38] |
| [‘PORT OF MANY SHIPS’] | |
| ‘It’s a sunny pleasant anchorage, is Kingdom Come’ | [40] |
| [CAPE HORN GOSPEL—I] | |
| ‘I was in a hooker once,’ said Karlssen | [42] |
| [CAPE HORN GOSPEL—II] | |
| Jake was a dirty Dago lad, an’ he gave the skipper chin | [45] |
| [MOTHER CAREY] | |
| Mother Carey? She’s the mother o’ the witches | [48] |
| [EVENING—REGATTA DAY] | |
| Your nose is a red jelly, your mouth’s a toothless wreck | [50] |
| [A VALEDITION] | |
| We’re bound for blue water where the great winds blow | [52] |
| [A PIER-HEAD CHORUS] | |
| Oh, I’ll be chewing salted horse and biting flinty bread | [54] |
| [THE GOLDEN CITY OF ST. MARY] | |
| Out beyond the sunset, could I but find the way | [56] |
| [TRADE WINDS] | |
| In the harbour, in the island, in the Spanish Seas | [58] |
| [SEA-FEVER] | |
| I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky | [59] |
| [A WANDERER’S SONG] | |
| A wind’s in the heart o’ me, a fire’s in my heels | [61] |
| [CARDIGAN BAY] | |
| Clean, green, windy billows notching out the sky | [63] |
| A wind is rustling ‘south and soft’ | [64] |
| [CHRISTMAS EVE AT SEA] | |
| [A BALLAD OF CAPE ST. VINCENT] | |
| ‘Now, Bill, ain’t it prime to be a-sailin’ | [66] |
| [THE TARRY BUCCANEER] | |
| I’m going to be a pirate with a bright brass pivot-gun | [68] |
| [A BALLAD OF JOHN SILVER] | |
| We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull | [71] |
| [LYRICS FROM ‘THE BUCCANEER’] | |
| I.—We are far from sight of the harbour lights | [74] |
| II.—There’s a sea-way somewhere where all day long | [75] |
| III.—The toppling rollers at the harbour mouth | [76] |
| [D’AVALOS’ PRAYER] | |
| When the last sea is sailed and the last shallow charted | [77] |
| [THE WEST WIND] | |
| It’s a warm wind,the west wind, full of birds’ cries | [79] |
| [THE GALLEY-ROWERS] | |
| Staggering over the running combers | [82] |
| [SORROW OF MYDATH] | |
| Weary the cry of the wind is, weary the sea | [84] |
| [VAGABOND] | |
| Dunno a heap about the what an’ why | [85] |
| [VISION] | |
| I have drunken the red wine and flung the dice | [86] |
| [SPUNYARN] | |
| Spunyarn, spunyarn, with one to turn the crank | [88] |
| [THE DEAD KNIGHT] | |
| The cleanly rush of the mountain air | [89] |
| [PERSONAL] | |
| Tramping at night in the cold and wet, I passed the lighted inn | [91] |
| [ON MALVERN HILL] | |
| A wind is brushing down the clover | [92] |
| [TEWKESBURY ROAD] | |
| It is good to be out on the road, and goingone knows not where | [94] |
| [ON EATNOR KNOLL] | |
| Silent are the woods, and the dim green boughs are | [96] |
| [‘REST HER SOUL, SHE’S DEAD!’] | |
| She has done with the sea’s sorrow and the world’s way | [97] |
| [‘ALL YE THAT PASS BY’] | |
| On the long dusty ribbon of the long city street | [99] |
| [IN MEMORY OF A. P. R.] | |
| Once in the windy wintry weather | [101] |
| [TO-MORROW] | |
| Oh yesterday the cutting edge drank thirstily and deep | [102] |
| [CAVALIER] | |
| All the merry kettle-drums are thudding into rhyme | [104] |
| [A SONG AT PARTING] | |
| The tick of the blood is settling slow, my heart will soon be still | [106] |
| [GLOSSARY] | [109] |