Sure this poem is so spare and simple-seeming that it could well be "a vessel for readers to pour their own lives into" (Bill), or an empty vessel, for that matter (me), or an "archetype" (Nemo), or an essence (me), or something pure and elemental (me).
Overall, there is in part some relief to be had in reading this poem, for that "freedom" from responsibilities and cares, that Julie talked about.
I don't find the poem tired, or worn, or whatever, at all. It makes me think of walking by the ocean here (LA). It's where you go to blow all the crap out of your head. And JM catches the essence of that beach freedom, and the longing for simplicity we all have at times.
And for me--I'm in agreement with David A--the final line wraps it all up beautifully:
"And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over."
The word "trick" is the most interesting in the poem. Wow! It's as if he were saying: yeah, I know, life's just all deception and delusion; we don't get our dreams at all; it's all a "trick." It's as if he's commenting rather wryly, or even acerbically, on his longings and dreams--on the entire poem, in fact. Yes, that one word makes a huge difference to how one reads the poem; impossible to see it as sentimental now.
See, he knows he's in cloud-land here by the waves. What is there, really, but looking forward to death as a "quiet sleep and a sweet dream" after life's complicated muck? The relief of that! Of course, he could also be talking about going home to an early night of good sleep after a nice day on the beach... but that "long trick"... No, I don't think so.
I think I read this when young, but I don’t really remember it from those days. And it doesn’t resonate with me in the way that a poem like Edward Thomas' "Adlestrop" does, for example. Now I see, after all, there's a whole lot more going on in Masefield's poem than I thought.
So nice to come to these old classics afresh!
Charlotte
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