[27] Sea Fever
Borrowing a leaf from Thomas, I'll run a set of three sea poems this week,
beginning with what is doubtless the most famous of them all ...
I must go down to the seas again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song
and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face
and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again,
for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call
that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day
with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
and the sea-gulls crying.
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.
-- John Masefield
|
Another of those poems that everyone has probably read before, but no less
good for being famous. The simple but beautiful phrases need no commentary,
IMHO, so I'll merely note in passing that the first line is often written
without the 'go' - again, I merely picked the variant I liked better.
Biographical Note:
MASEFIELD, John (1878-1967). Poet laureate of Great Britain from 1930
until his death, John Masefield was only 22 years old when he wrote the
simple and moving lines in his poem 'Sea Fever'. Masefield was born on
June 1, 1878, in Ledbury, Herefordshire, England. After his father's death
he was looked after by an uncle. Young Masefield wanted to be a merchant
marine officer. At 13 he boarded the training ship Conway moored in the
river Mersey. After two and a half years on the school ship he was
apprenticed aboard a sailing ship that was bound for Chile by way of Cape
Horn. In Chile he became ill and had to return to England by steamer. He
left the sea and spent several years living in the United States, working
chiefly in a carpet factory.
[...]
In 1897 he returned to England determined to succeed as a writer. He
worked on newspapers at first. But he never forgot his days at sea. He
returned to them again and again in his poems and stories. He wrote about
the land too, about typically English things like fox hunting, racing, and
outdoor life. In 1902 Masefield published his first volume of poems,
'Salt-Water Ballads'. After that he wrote steadily poems, stories, and
plays.
-- Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia
Criticism:
The results of his wanderings showed in his early works, Salt-Water Ballads
(1902), Ballads (1903), frank and often crude poems of sailors written in
their own dialect, and A Mainsail Haul (1905), a collection of short
nautical stories. In these books Masefield possibly overemphasized passion
and brutality but, underneath the violence, he captured that highly-colored
realism which is the poetry of life.
It was not until he published The Everlasting Mercy (1911) that he became
famous. Followed quickly by those remarkable long narrative poems, The Widow
in the Bye Street (1912), Dauber (1912), and The Daffodil Fields (1913),
there is in all of these that peculiar blend of physical exulting and
spiritual exaltation that is so striking, and so typical of Masefield. Their
very rudeness is lifted to a plane of religious intensity. (See Preface.)
Pictorially, Masefield is even more forceful. The finest moment in The Widow
in the Bye Street is the portrayal of the mother alone in her cottage; the
public-house scene and the passage describing the birds following the plough
are the most intense touches in The Everlasting Mercy. Nothing more vigorous
and thrilling than the description of the storm at sea in Dauber[1] has
appeared in current literature.
-- Untermeyer, Louis, ed. 1920. Modern British Poetry.
[1] Excerpt follows - it's too long a poem to run, but i'm glad of the
chance to quote a bit of it. Anyone interested can find the full text at
<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/2012/poems/dauber00.html>
How long the gale had blown he could not tell,
Only the world had changed, his life had died.
A moment now was everlasting hell.
Nature an onslaught from the weather side,
A withering rush of death, a frost that cried,
Shrieked, till he withered at the heart; a hail
Plastered his oilskins with an icy mail....
"Up!" yelled the Bosun; "up and clear the wreck!"
The Dauber followed where he led; below
He caught one giddy glimpsing of the deck
Filled with white water, as though heaped with snow.
He saw the streamers of the rigging blow
Straight out like pennons from the splintered mast,
Then, all sense dimmed, all was an icy blast.
Roaring from nether hell and filled with ice,
Roaring and crashing on the jerking stage,
An utter bridle given to utter vice,
Limitless power mad with endless rage
Withering the soul; a minute seemed an age.
He clutched and hacked at ropes, at rags of sail,
Thinking that comfort was a fairy tale,
-- Masefield, from 'Dauber'
martin
From: "T.P. Harvey" <northwalsham@>
"Sea Fever"... should the first line read "I must GO down..."? Debatable.
Yes, if we consider the author's own audio recording of the poem to be our
guide, captured in sound with a number of his other works, when he was a
very elderly man; he died in 1967. I have a cassette copy of this recording;
at that great age, to my ear, Masefield sounds very like Gielgud did in his
late years. The "go" is unmissable. However, as a boy in England, I was
taught the version his publishers, Heinemann, originally printed in their
"Collected Works of John Masefield", which I also have; that version omits
the "go". But Masefield certainly recited it, in later years, with the "go"
included. I think the song setting by his contemporary, John Ireland, fixed
the line in the public imagination with the "go" included, [q.v.
http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/m/masefield/fever.html].
I commend "The Wanderer" to anyone who likes his sea tales; it's a lusty,
absorbing narrative. I found "The Everlasting Mercy" to be highly
significant to the development of my own belief system, when I encountered
it first at age nineteen, but that was some time ago. It is still a
nostalgic read, evoking a long-gone rustic Englishness.
T. H. [northwalsham@]
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From: "ADV.DAVE STEPHENS" <stephens@>
The last line of Sea Fever--what does Masefield mean by '' the long
trick's over" ?
Appreciate your help.
Dave Stephens
From: "ADV.DAVE STEPHENS" <stephens@>
The last line of Sea Fever--what does Masefield mean by '' the long
trick's over" ?
Appreciate your help.
Dave Stephens
From: "Mishka" <mishka19@>
Hullo!
Just came across your comment while doing a websearch on Masefield's 'Sea
Fever' poem. Don't know how recent it is or whether you've already received
answers, but in case not...
the "trick" he's referring to is a "trick at the helm". On tall ships, the
time one spends steering the ship is called a "trick" and they often lasted
two to four hours. At the end of that "long trick" one would definitely
need a good sleep.
Cheers,
Mishka
From: LKOONDEL@
I also learned the poem Sea Fever when I was in grade school. We also left
out the word "GO".
From: LKOONDEL@
I love this poem so much and have such great memories of Sea Fever---my
father was a fisherman and now I have a boat named "Sea Fever".
From: "Chris Gosden" <chrisgosden@>
Hi! Enjoyed my visit to your page. My compliments on your care and
dedication.
In a contributory vein, I feel I should draw your attention to a small
(but significant) error, possibly a typo, in the first line. It should
be 'the sea' (not 'the seas') - as is corroborated in the second line
of the same stanza (first and second in your layout, that is - in the
printed book original, it's all one and the same line.) Masefield
reserves the plural form for the second and third stanzas.
Also, in the third stanza, there should be a hyphen in 'fellow-rover',
if it is to mean a companion in roving, as Masefield clearly intended.
Without the hyphen it means a fellow who was a rover. (At least, it does
to a Brit. I am informed that American usage is coming more and more to
dispense with hyphens in compound forms, with ensuing loss of clarity).
What was Masefield's spelling, one wonders? US or Brit? Anybody know?)
I've tried in vain to find the text of 'Reynard the Fox' on the Net. Any
tips?
Keep up the good work.
From: Roger Wickins <rwickins@>
The training ship that Masefield went to, HMS Conway was closed by Margaret
Thatcher for budgetary reasons but the Times reported that it was closed as
it was "far too Spartan."
Old Conways include the manager of the English rugby team which is currently
have some success and William Haig the Leader of the British Conservative
Party who does not appear to be having any success.
When the Conway broke her back in the Menai Straits in the 1953 while being
towed for a refit to Liverpool she was the last floating wooden walled
fighting ship in the British Navy. Thus the last in 800 years of tradition.
Captain Mathew Webb, the first person to swim the English Channel was an Old
Conway.
Roger Wickins HMS Conway 1954 to 1956
Roger Wickins Consulting Pty Ltd
Phone 61 [0]2 9973 2158 Fax 61 [0]2 9918 7209
Mobile 04.1236 6137
--Boundary_(ID_nPEZji10+wJ/VI3WUNjQFA)
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<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2726.2500" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV><SPAN class=200273822-07072003><FONT face=Arial size=2>The training ship
that Masefield went to, HMS Conway was closed by Margaret Thatcher for budgetary
reasons but the Times reported that it was closed as it was "far too
Spartan."</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=200273822-07072003><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=200273822-07072003><FONT face=Arial size=2>Old Conways include
the manager of the English rugby team which is currently have some success and
William Haig the Leader of the British Conservative Party who does not appear to
be having any success.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=200273822-07072003><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=200273822-07072003><FONT face=Arial size=2>When the Conway
broke her back in the Menai Straits in the 1953 while being towed for a refit to
Liverpool she was the last floating wooden walled fighting ship in the British
Navy. Thus the last in 800 years of tradition.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=200273822-07072003><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=200273822-07072003><FONT face=Arial size=2>Captain Mathew Webb,
the first person to swim the English Channel was an Old
Conway.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Verdana><STRONG></STRONG></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Verdana><STRONG></STRONG></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT><FONT face=Verdana><STRONG>Roger Wickins</STRONG><SPAN
class=200273822-07072003> <FONT
size=2>HMS Conway 1954 to 1956</FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=left><STRONG><FONT face=Verdana size=2></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><STRONG><FONT face=Verdana></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Arial size=2>Roger Wickins Consulting Pty
Ltd</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Arial size=2>Phone 61 [0]2 9973 2158 Fax 61 [0]2 9918
7209 </FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Arial size=2>Mobile 04.1236 6137</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></BODY></HTML>
--Boundary_(ID_nPEZji10+wJ/VI3WUNjQFA)--
From: "Peter Hanson" <p.hanson@>
in the last line of sea fever, "the long trick's over". Well, in sea
terms a trick a trip or journey, in the poem it means the end of his
life. hope this helps!
From: Surphertoo@
When Masefield in the original text writes "down to the sea" instead of go
down to the sea,the expression "I must down..."could mean the same as cattle
lowing or humans bowing. Each word relates to the word down.
The first example relates to inherent behavior and the second relates to
respect.
Both examples relay the power the ocean had over Mr. Masefield.
From: "Dennis Hutchison" <hookinfinger@>
Hello,
Just a little insight from a seaman, only my perspective, if I may.
QUOTE:
"and quiet sleep and sweet dreams
when the long trick is over"
I feel Mr. Masefield was eluding to the his own final journey in life.
"the long trick is over"
Thank You for your time,
Dennis
From: Ian Mann <Iasmann@>
I have a question too-- What does the "wheel's kick" mean? Thanks so much Ann
From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@>
--- Ian Mann <Iasmann@> wrote:
> I have a question too-- What does the "wheel's kick" mean? Thanks so much
Ann
The 'wheel' in question is the steering wheel of the ship. (see
http://www.antiquesofthesea.com/wheels.html for pictures). The "wheel's kick"
refers to the "kick" of the wheel against the helmsman's hands as he tried to
turn it or keep it steady against the sea.
martin
From: "biec" <Biec@>
Love this poem and thanks for the site. I am teaching this poem to my
ESOL students and some of the explanations are just what I needed.
Keep up the great work. I think this will become one of my favourite
sites.
Kind regards
Liz
From: "Sharon Williams" <shar.williams@>
Hello!
I ran across your set of sea poems this week and thought you might find it
interesting that a British music artist William Topley has a new album
releasing this Tuesday, June 21st entitled Sea Fever that includes a song by
the same name & the lyrics taken directly from the John Masefield poem.
Would you consider mentioning/adding this page w/ the audio to your feature?
http://www.myspace.com/williamtopley
Sharon Williams
820 Media
shar.williams@
323.651.3878
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From: "Joanna M Debenham" <jo@>
Joanna Debenham