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Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man it has become the amusement and delight of the few.

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
Men
Press
Delight
Poetry
Since
Came
Ceased
Community
Printing
Become
Amusement
Whole
Presses

More quotes by 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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It ought to have gangsters, and aeroplanes and a lot of automatic pistols.
John Masefield
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Man's body is faulty, his mind untrustworthy, but his imagination has made him remarkable.
John Masefield
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Most roads lead men homewards, My road leads me forth
John Masefield
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The three foundations of judgement: Bold Design, Constant Practice, and Frequent Mistakes.
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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Commonplace people dislike tragedy because they dare not suffer and cannot exult.
John Masefield
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The social states of human kinds Are made by multitudes of minds, And after multitudes of years A little human growth appears Worth having, even to the soul Who sees most plain it's not the whole.
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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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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And may we find when ended is the page, Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.
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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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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All the great things of life are swiftly done, Creation, death, and love the double gate. However much we dawdle in the sun We have to hurry at the touch of Fate.
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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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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His face was filled with broken commandments.
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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Off Cape Horn there are but two kinds of weather, neither one of them a pleasant kind.
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