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Life, a beauty chased by tragic laughter.

John Masefield

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John Masefield
Age: 88 †
Born: 1878
Born: June 1
Died: 1967
Died: May 12
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
County of Herefordshire
John Edward Masefield
Laughing
Beauty
Life
Chased
Tragic
Laughter

More quotes by John Masefield

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Each one could be a Jesus mild, Each one has been a little child, A little child with laughing look, A lovely white unwritten book A book that God will take, my friend, As each goes out at journey's end.
John Masefield
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I hold that when a person dies / His soul returns again to earth / Arrayed in some new flesh disguise / Another mother gives him birth / With sturdier limbs and brighter brain.
John Masefield
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Man with his burning soul Has but an hour of breath To build a ship of Truth In which his soul may sail- Sail on the sea of death. For death takes toll Of beauty, courage, youth, Of all but Truth.
John Masefield
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The three foundations of judgement: Bold Design, Constant Practice, and Frequent Mistakes.
John Masefield
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So death obscures your gentle form, So memory strives to make the darkness bright And, in that heap of rocks, your body lies, Part of the island till the planet ends, My gentle comrade, beautiful and wise, Part of this crag this bitter surge offends, While I, who pass, a little obscure thing, War with this force, and breathe, and am its king.
John Masefield
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Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.
John Masefield
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To most of us the future seems unsure. But then it always has been and we who have seen great changes must have great hopes.
John Masefield
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Life's battle is a conquest for the strong The meaning shows in the defeated thing.
John Masefield
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In this life he laughs longest who laughs last.
John Masefield
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O lovely lily clean, O lily springing green, O lily bursting white, Dear lily of delight, Spring in my heart agen That I may flower to men.
John Masefield
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His face was filled with broken commandments.
John Masefield
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But he has gone, A nation's memory and veneration, Among the radiant, ever venturing on, Somewhere, with morning, as such spirits will.
John Masefield
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I must 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
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I must go down to the sea again For the call of the running tide It's a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.
John Masefield
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In the dark room where I began My mother's life made me a man. Through all the months of human birth Her beauty fed my common earth. I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, But through the death of some of her.
John Masefield
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When the last sea is sailed and last shallow charted, When the last field is reaped and the last harvest stored, When the last fire is out and the last guest departed Grant the last prayer that I pray, Be good to me, O Lord.
John Masefield
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Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.
John Masefield
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Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain, And the watch fire under stars, and sleep, and the road again.
John Masefield
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I have seen flowers come in stony places And kind things done by men with ugly faces, And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races, So I trust, too.
John Masefield
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From '41 to '51I was my folk's contrary sonI bit my father's hand right throughAnd broke my mother's heart in two.
John Masefield