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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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John Masefield
Age: 88 †
Born: 1878
Born: June 1
Died: 1967
Died: May 12
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
County of Herefordshire
John Edward Masefield
Hours
Burning
Death
Hour
Toll
Truth
Sea
Tolls
May
Build
Sail
Soul
Youth
Ship
Men
Courage
Ships
Takes
Breath
Beauty
Breaths

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In this life he laughs longest who laughs last.
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On the long dusty ribbon of the long city street, The pageant of life is passing me on multitudinous feet, With a word here of the hills, and a song there of the sea And-the great movement changes-the pageant passes me.
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Most roads lead men homewards, My road leads me forth
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The three foundations of judgement: Bold Design, Constant Practice, and Frequent Mistakes.
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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.
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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.
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And may we find when ended is the page, Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.
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State are not made, nor patched they grow Grow slow through centuries of pain, And grow correctly in the main But only grow by certain laws, Of certain bits in certain jaws.
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Commonplace people dislike tragedy because they dare not suffer and cannot exult.
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All I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by.
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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.
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God warms his hands at man's heart when he prays.
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Life, a beauty chased by tragic laughter.
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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.
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I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.
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Off Cape Horn there are but two kinds of weather, neither one of them a pleasant kind.
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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.
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The luck will alter and the star will rise.
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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.
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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.
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