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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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John Masefield
Age: 88 †
Born: 1878
Born: June 1
Died: 1967
Died: May 12
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
County of Herefordshire
John Edward Masefield
Mixture
Mixtures
Uncommon
Poetry
Common
Sense

More quotes by John Masefield

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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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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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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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There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.
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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Life, a beauty chased by tragic laughter.
John Masefield
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God warms his hands at man's heart when he prays.
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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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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The corn that makes the holy bread By which the soul of man is fed, The holy bread, the food unpriced, Thy everlasting mercy, Christ.
John Masefield
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Man cannot call the brimming instant back Time's an affair of instants spun to days If man must make an instant gold, or black, Let him, he may but Time must go his ways. Life may be duller for an instant's blaze. Life's an affair of instants spun to years, Instants are only cause of all these tears.
John Masefield
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God dropped a spark down into everyone, And if we find and fan it to a blaze, It'll spring up and glow, like--like the sun, And light the wandering out of stony ways.
John Masefield
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I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain.
John Masefield
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Most roads lead men homewards, My road leads me forth
John Masefield
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The distant soul can shake the distant friend's soul and make the longing felt, over untold miles.
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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And may we find when ended is the page, Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.
John Masefield
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When Life knocks at the door no one can wait, When Death makes his arrest we have to go.
John Masefield
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In this life he laughs longest who laughs last.
John Masefield
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The three foundations of judgement: Bold Design, Constant Practice, and Frequent Mistakes.
John Masefield