[David Anthony]

Like so many of the finest sea poems and ballads, there's an analogy here between the ending of a voyage and the ending of life:

'And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over'

Who could hope for more than this?

[Roger Slater]

David, I granted L2 is strong and that the final line suddenly delivers a metaphor at the last possible moment. But it seems to me that the metaphor comes too late, and is not really of a piece with the lines that come between L2 and the end. Just random details.

Also, I don't see what's so great about grey mists or grey dawns (and, by the way, what would a grey dawn that is not breaking look like? I suspect it would look like a dawn observed by a poet who didn't need to rhyme in that spot).

[Marcia Karp]

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky
From Salt-Water Ballads (London: G. Richards, 1902).

Just a minor (and tedious) setting the record straight -- as Bill notes, but I failed to see until writing this, the first line given is not from the volume given. (You might happily ignore the following textual criticism.)

In the 1902, and until the 1910 Ballads and Poems, the line is

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky

But of course, bibliography's goal being to drive us crazy, the 1st American edition of Salt-Water Poems and Ballads, 1916, returns to the no-go version. As do the 1st American edition of Salt Water Ballads and Poems (1923) and all four English editions (1923-1938) of Collected Poems. And then there is the erroneous single first sea, no-go,version in the Boston rag, The Living Age (1902).

Please, don't learn from JM how to title vols.

Marcia

[Jesse Anger]

This is brilliant:

there's so little content, and what's there is so vague, that the poem becomes a vessel for readers to pour their own lives into it.

[R. Nemo Hill]

That is how archetypes work in the soul/psyche.

Nemo

[Charlotte Innes]

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

[John Whitworth]

Thank you, Marcia. The version I learned is the one without 'go'. I like it much better. Away with 'go'.

[David Rosenthal]

Originally Posted by Jesse Anger

This is brilliant:

there's so little content, and what's there is so vague, that the poem becomes a vessel for readers to pour their own lives into it.

I would love this comment myself if it were applied to a poem that grabbed me more. But, I must report that Bob's comments have mostly spoken for me. I think I can understand why this poem has struck others so well, but it doesn't do the same for me.

David R.

[John Beaton]

It took me a while, but I've just read Masefield's "Dauber" as cited by Bill Carpenter. What a wonderful poem! Thanks greatly, Bill.

John