That famous poet laureate of the ships and the sea, John Masefield, was born in 1878, a year after my grandmother. He set sail before the mast in big iron and steel British square-riggers. Rounded Cape Horn and hauled miles and miles of braces before heading ashore. His ships were much like our Barque PICTON CASTLE but MUCH larger. But I am sure he would see ships he knew our sweet 300 ton barque. All the old Cape Horners I used to know say as much.
He wrote some of the most evocative word images of ships and the sea. Here is just one to start with.
A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels,
I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;
I hunger for the sea’s edge, the limit of the land,
Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.
Oh I’ll be going, leaving the noises of the street,
To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet;
To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride,
Oh I’ll be going, going, until I meet the tide.
And first I’ll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls,
The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls,
The songs at the capstan at the hooker warping out,
And then the heart of me’ll know I’m there or thereabout.
Oh I am sick of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick,
For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick;
And I’ll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels,
For a wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels.
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Ships by John Masefield
(by Ted Miles, Assistant Reference Librarian) and deep sea schooner sailor, who was crew in the schooner ERNESTINA across the Atlantic from Africa to New England in 1982
Wanderer of Liverpool at anchor in San Francisco Bay, circa July 1892.
Photo by Thomas H. Wilton (B6 40,027nl)
John Masefield ( 1878-1967) started by joining the Training Ship Conway intending to be an officer in the British Merchant Navy at that time the largest in the world. After completing his schooling in 1894, he went to sea as an Apprentice in the Gilcruix (iron 4 mast ship, built 1883) and several other vessels; he had seen the famous and beautiful Wanderer (steel 4 mast bark, built 1890). He wrote a detailed biography of the vessel. But he had to abandon his sea career due to poor health. After a period of odd jobs he settled into a successful career of writing and lecturing in England and the United States.
But his early life at sea provided the creativity that produced Salt Water Ballads in 1902. And many of his sea poems also appeared in his Collected Poems in 1922 which sold over 80,000 copies.