John Masefield

Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man; it has become the amusement and delight of the few.

I must go down to the sea again For the call of the running tide It's a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.

Commonplace people dislike tragedy because they dare not suffer and cannot exult.

What am I, Life? A thing of watery salt Held in cohesion by unresting cells, Which work they know not why, which never halt, Myself unwitting where their Master dwells?

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's 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 trick's over.

Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.

Once in a century a man may be ruined or made insufferable by praise. But surely once in a minute something generous dies for want of it.

I have seen flowers come in stony places_x000D_ And kind things done by men with ugly faces,_x000D_ And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,_x000D_ So I trust, too.

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky; and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.

I have seen the Lady April bringing_x000D_ _x000D_ the daffodils,_x000D_ _x000D_ Bringing the springing grass and the_x000D_ _x000D_ soft warm April rain.

Man cannot call the brimming instant back;_x000D_ _x000D_ Time's an affair of instants spun to days;_x000D_ _x000D_ If man must make an instant gold, or black,_x000D_ _x000D_ Let him, he may; but Time must go his ways._x000D_ _x000D_ Life may be duller for an instant's blaze._x000D_ _x000D_ Life's an affair of instants spun to years,_x000D_ _x000D_ Instants are only cause of all these tears.

On the long dusty ribbon of the long city street,_x000D_ _x000D_ The pageant of life is passing me on multitudinous feet,_x000D_ _x000D_ With a word here of the hills, and a song there of the sea_x000D_ _x000D_ And-the great movement changes-the pageant passes me.