This journal is mostly public because most of it contains poetry, quotations, pictures, jokes, videos, and news (medical and otherwise). If you like what you see, you are welcome to drop by, anytime. I update frequently.

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Posts Tagged: 'john+masefield'

Oct. 26th, 2012

med_cat: (Default)
med_cat: (Default)

"I could not sleep for thinking of the sky"

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Sky photo
~~~
Faint reflection nebulae VdB 14 and VdB 15 in Camelopardalis http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=29452&start=200#p184646 Copyright: Milos Hroch
~~~
I could not sleep for thinking of the sky,
The unending sky, with all its million suns
Which turn their planets everlastingly
In nothing, where the fire-haired comet runs.

If I could sail that nothing, I should cross
Silence and emptiness with dark stars passing,
Then, in the darkness, see a point of gloss
Burn to a glow, and glare, and keep amassing,

And rage into a sun with wandering planets
And drop behind, and then, as I proceed,
See his last light upon his last moon’s granites
Die to dark that would be night indeed.

Night where my soul might sail a million years
In nothing, not even death, not even tears.

(John Masefield)
med_cat: (woman reading)
med_cat: (woman reading)

"I must go down to the seas again..."

med_cat: (woman reading)
"Sea-Fever" is one of John Masefield's  most anthologised poems, much quoted, too. Even Capt. Kirk quotes it in ST:TOS, "all I need is a tall ship and a star to steer her by..."

Sea-Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.


I must go down to the seas again... )
Many thanks to
[livejournal.com profile] debriswoman  who informed me some weeks ago, to my profound amusement, and surprise--I was sure he was an accomplished sailor-- that, quite on the contrary, John Masefield was reported to be a bad sailor. His wife said he had felt ill when a trip on a liner was too "uppy-downy".

[livejournal.com profile] debriswoman also provided the following parody of the poem above, published in the Faber Book of Parodies, which includes a number of parodies of well-known classic poems and authors. I present it here:


by  Arthur Guiterman  (1871-1943)
I must go down to the seas again, where the billows romp and reel,
So all I ask is a large ship that rides on an even keel,
And a mild breeze and a broad deck with a slight list to leeward,
And a clean chair in a snug nook and a nice, kind steward.


I must go down to the seas again... )

May. 19th, 2011

med_cat: (dog and book)
med_cat: (dog and book)

On Growing Old

med_cat: (dog and book)

(John Weiss, reposted from [livejournal.com profile] levkonoe )
**

On Growing Old

Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying;
My dog and I are old, too old for roving.
Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying,
Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving.
I take the book and gather to the fire,
Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute
The clock ticks to my heart. A withered wire,
Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet.
I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander
Your cornland, nor your hill-land, nor your valleys
Ever again, nor share the battle yonder
Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies.
Only stay quiet while my mind remembers
The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers.

Beauty, have pity! for the strong have power,
The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace,
Summer of man its sunlight and its flower.
Spring-time of man, all April in a face.
Only, as in the jostling in the Strand,
Where the mob thrusts, or loiters, or is loud,
The beggar with the saucer in his hand
Asks only a penny from the passing crowd,
So, from this glittering world with all its fashion,
Its fire, and play of men, its stir, its march,
Let me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion,
Bread to the soul, rain when the summers parch.
Give me but these, and though the darkness close
Even the night will blossom as the rose.

John Masefield

http://www.poemhunter.com/

May. 9th, 2011

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med_cat: (Default)

"All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by..."

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**

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go 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.

(John Masefield)

Nov. 4th, 2009

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A Creed

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A Creed

     

    I HOLD that when a person dies
    His soul returns again to earth;
    Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise
    Another mother gives him birth.
    With sturdier limbs and brighter brain
    The old soul takes the road again.

     

    Such is my own belief and trust;
    This hand, this hand that holds the pen,
    Has many a hundred times been dust
    And turned, as dust, to dust again;
    These eyes of mine have blinked and shone
    In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon.

     

    All that I rightly think or do,
    Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast,
    Is curse or blessing justly due
    For sloth or effort in the past.
    My life's a statement of the sum
    Of vice indulged, or overcome.

     

    I know that in my lives to be
    My sorry heart will ache and burn,
    And worship, unavailingly,
    The woman whom I used to spurn,
    And shake to see another have
    The love I spurned, the love she gave.

     

    And I shall know, in angry words,
    In gibes, and mocks, and many a tear,
    A carrion flock of homing-birds,
    The gibes and scorns I uttered here.
    The brave word that I failed to speak
    Will brand me dastard on the cheek.

     

    And as I wander on the roads
    I shall be helped and healed and blessed;
    Dear words shall cheer and be as goads
    To urge to heights before unguessed.
    My road shall be the road I made;
    All that I gave shall be repaid.

     

    So shall I fight, so shall I tread,
    In this long war beneath the stars;
    So shall a glory wreathe my head,
    So shall I faint and show the scars,
    Until this case, this clogging mould,
    Be smithied all to kingly gold.
    John Masefield

Nov. 3rd, 2009

med_cat: (Hourglass)
med_cat: (Hourglass)

In Memoriam: Jeremy Brett

med_cat: (Hourglass)
The Passing Strange

Out of the earth to rest or range
Perpetual in perpetual change,
The unknown passing through the strange.

Water and saltness held together
To tread the dust and stand the weather,
And plow the field and stretch the tether,

To pass the wine-cup and be witty,
Water the sands and build the city,
Slaughter like devils and have pity,

Be red with rage and pale with lust,
Make beauty come, make peace, make trust,
Water and saltness mixed with dust;

Drive over earth, swim under sea,
Fly in the eagle's secrecy,
Guess where the hidden comets be;

Know all the deathly seeds that still
Queen Helen's beauty, Caesar's will,
And slay them even as they kill;

Fashion an altar for a rood,
Defile a continent with blood,
And watch a brother starve for food;

Love like a madman, shaking, blind,
Till self is burnt into a kind
Possession of another mind;

Brood upon beauty, till the grace
Of beauty with the holy face
Brings peace into the bitter place;

Prove in the lifeless granites, scan
The stars for hope, for guide, for plan;
Live as a woman or a man;

Fasten to lover or to friend,
Until the heart break at the end
The break of death that cannot mend:

Then to lie useless, helpless, still,
Down in the earth, in dark, to fill
The roots of grass or daffodil.

Down in the earth, in dark, alone,
A mockery of the ghost in bone,
The strangeness, passing the unknown.

Time will go by, that outlasts clocks,
Dawn in the thorps will rouse the cocks,
Sunset be glory on the rocks:

But it, the thing, will never heed
Even the rootling from the seed
Thrusting to suck it for its need.

Since moons decay and suns decline,
How else should end this life of mine?
Water and saltness are not wine.

But in the darkest hour of night,
When even the foxes peer for sight,
The byre-cock crows; he feels the light.

So, in this water mixed with dust,
The byre-cock spirit crows from trust
That death will change because it must;

For all things change, the darkness changes,
The wandering spirits change their ranges,
The corn is gathered to the granges.

The corn is sown again, it grows;
The stars burn out, the darkness goes;
The rhythms change, they do not close.

They change, and we, who pass like foam,
Like dust blown through the streets of Rome,
Change ever, too; we have no home,

Only a beauty, only a power,
Sad in the fruit, bright in the flower,
Endlessly erring for its hour,

But gathering, as we stray, a sense
Of Life, so lovely and intense,
It lingers when we wander hence,

That those who follow feel behind
Their backs, when all before is blind,
Our joy, a rampart to the mind.

(John Masefield)