I'm afraid this doesn't really do very much for me. Yes, it has a pleasant enough sound and rhythm, but it offers me very little in terms of imagery that coheres in some way, suggests an explanation or sensation that I needed the poet to help me imagine, or justifies the apparent metaphorical reading claimed by the poem's final line. And phrases like "that may not be denied" seem empty and rhyme-driven. And a wish for the wind to be like a knife? Really? In my opinion, the poem contains one truly admirable line. Line 2.
Certainly if Whitman's "Oh Captain!" is to be called "horrible," this poem by Masefield (written years later) deserves the same honorific. Though I happen to think "Oh Captain!" is hugely better, however uncharacteristic of Whitman's superior work.
What other "poems of the sea" are there? Surely there are many, though I'm not a student of them. "Ancient Mariner," of course, which is obviously better than this. And I would toss this little Kipling into the mix:
Seal Lullaby
Oh! Hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
... And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us,
... At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, then soft be thy pillow,
... Oh weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
... Asleep in the arms of the slow swinging seas!
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