I'll give a defense. I think it is a good poem and I for one have no sentimental attachment to it.
1. The diction (and syntax and so on) are plain--that is, immediately understandable--but slightly elevated. That matters because:
2. It meets Yeats's criterion--something someone might actually say under the pressure of some great emotion.
3. I also think the emotion driving the speaker is far more universal than the literal meaning of going to sea. It's a poem you can turn to when you what you want most of all is to escape the everyday grind. The call of the open road.
4. There's also a catalog effect here: all I need is this and this and this. There's a sense that the life the speaker longs for is simpler, clearer, a life where everything has a prescribed place and purpose. I can't imagine anyone not feeling a desire for that now & then.
I can't quite decide from reading it whether Masefield knows anything at all about the sea, but that only adds to the sense that this is mostly daydream or longing.
So: emotions of strong universal appeal, speech elevated to a believable pitch, a memorable phrase or two and otherwise competent verisifying, and you get the sort of memorable poem people actually care about.
Pat
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