John Masefield… many people only know him for his wonderfully descriptive poems found in anthologies for young people… he is a poet of much more, and although some of his verses have not stood the test of time, in my opinion, there are verses which shine across the hundred years since they were penned.
Orphaned when young, John had a hard life and at times must have been near despair. Looking at the photos of him which accompany biographical articles, he looks almost effete; however he was a young sailor on trans-Atlantic sailing ships before the turn of the twentieth century. He lived for a while in the Unites States where he was hungry, homeless, and for a while a hobo. Even when he found a job and accommodation, it was in a carpet factory.
I admire him as a poet, but also as a man.
Not that the stars are all gone mad in heaven
Plucking the unseen reins upon men’s souls,
Not that the law that bound the planets seven
Is discord now; man probes for new controls.
He bends no longer to the circling stars,
New moon and full moon and the living sun,
Love-making Venus, Jove and bloody Mars
Pass from their thrones, their rule of him is done.
And paler gods, made liker men, are past,
Like their sick eras to their funeral urns,
They cannot stand the fire blown by the blast
In which man’s soul that measures heaven burns.
Man in his cage of many millioned pain
Burns all to ash to prove if God remain
Lois Elsden 