Salt-Water Poems and Ballads (Classic Reprint)
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Salt-Water Poems and Ballads (Classic Reprint) by John Masefield
The Salt-Water Poems and Ballads were published in the new days of the twentieth century by a young man, newly home in Britain but freshly off a ship which arguably had been his truest home since before his eighteenth birthday. The love for the sea that John Masefield lays out in front of us is more than a simple saccharine wistfulness for the aquamarine beauty. He cares for its darkness, its perilous changeability and mercilessness. Whilst many poets who deal with a life at sea focus exclusively on the swashbuckling adventure available on tropical isles in ports of anarchy, The Salt-Water Poems and Ballads take in this element along with the accidents, the fears and the comfort of the routine in the midst of danger. Masefield cherishes even the darker moments beneath the 'cold skies'. 'When the rising moon was a copper disc and the sea was a strip of steel,We dumped him down to the swaying weeds ten fathoms beneath the keel' The poems work with the full spectrum of a sailor's life, the movement, the longing and the even the superstition and folklore of a life at sea. Picture the author in a little cabin, far out on deep water. Shimmering waves and flickering lamplight as John Masefield began to reach out and call us all to go to sea, more surely than any siren or mermaid. In the author's own words 'I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.' About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
John Masefield (1878-1967) was born in Herefordshire, England. After being orphaned at an early age, he was sent to sea aboard the school-ship HMS Conway in preparation for a naval career. Masefield's apprenticeship was disastrous--he was classified as a Distressed British Seaman after a voyage around Cape Horn--and he soon left the ship. Arrangements were then made for him to join another ship in New York. But Masefield had other plans: he deserted ship vowing to be a writer, come what might. At seventeen Masefield was living as a vagrant in America. He found work as a bar hand but eventually secured employment at a carpet factory. Thinking that journalism might allow him to write for a living, Masefield returned to England in 1897. Masefield's first volume of oetry, Salt-Water Ballads, was published in 1902, however, it was not until the publication of The Everlasting Mercy in 1911 that he made his mark on the literary scene. The success of his second book was followed by the publication of several long narrative poems, including Dauber (1914) and Reynard the Fox (1919). With the outbreak of the war, Masefield became an orderly at a hospital in France. He also took charge of a motorboat ambulance service at Gallipoli in 1915. After the Allied failure there, Masefield visited America and undertook a series of lectures in support of the war effort. IN 1930 he was appointed Poet Laureate, and five years later the much-loved Masefield was awarded the Order of Merit. He died on May 12, 1967, and his ashes were interred in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. The two Kay Harker books, The Midnight Folk (1927) and The Box of Delights (1935), are Masefield's lasting contribution to children's fantasy literature. The Box of Delights is now an established Christmas favourite and as much a part of the season as Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) was an American writer best known for her Young Adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781451000412 |
| ISBN 10 | 1451000413 |
| Title | Salt-Water Poems and Ballads (Classic Reprint) |
| Author | John Masefield |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Forgotten Books |
| Year published | 2018-04-18 |
| Number of pages | 222 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |