Must Go Back to the Seas Again
Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar" was yesterday's poem selection. Its primary image is of sailing on the sea; its primary theme is of dealing with death. Today's poem choice could, of course, go either way. I considered John Donne's "Death Exist Non Proud", another of my favorite poems from teenage years. I quite accidentally memorized the offset two lines all those years ago, and I have them however: "Death exist not proud, though some have chosen thee/mighty and dreadful, for thou art non so." Instead, I decided to go with something sea-related. And three poems came to mind at once, and so here is the one that sang loudest to me this morning time (perhaps because 
docstymie posted it just the other day):
by John Masefield
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely body of water and the sky,And all I inquire is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the bike's kick and the wind's song and the white canvass's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea'southward face and a grey dawn breaking.
I must downwardly to the seas again, for the telephone call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may non be denied;
And all I enquire is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the diddled spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must downward to the seas once more to the vagrant gypsy life.
To the gull's manner and the whale's way where the wind's similar a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing young man-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long play a joke on'due south* over.
*trick: a turn at the send's bike
First upwards, the story. The chief reason I know and love this poem is that my maternal grandmother had memorized it equally a school girl in the early on 1900s. She learned information technology in the class that it's printed here, every bit "I must down to the seas again", and considering I learnt information technology that fashion as well, I've put that version (which comes from the first printed edition of the poem) here. You lot should know that it'due south frequently printed every bit "I must get down to the sea again", and there's a recording of Masefield chanting his work in which he quite clearly uses the word "go" throughout (Notation - someone has "animated" a portrait of Masefield to back-trail the text, which is mildly disturbing, but you can listen to Masefield'due south 1941 recitation of his verse form this way). I have nevertheless kept with the version I acquaintance with my grandmother. Just so you know.
The verse form is written to exist read or performed aloud, and it is essentially in a version of heptameter, which is to say that it uses accentual metre and has seven stressed syllables per line. Each line has a break (actual or implied) roughly in the middle, with four stressed syllables in the outset part of the line, and three in the second role. So, "I must DOWN to the SEAS aGAIN,/ to the LONEly Ocean and the SKY//and ALL i ASK is a Tall Send/ and a STAR to STEER her Past" gives you an thought what I'm on nigh, I think. I added a slash to show where the suspension (existent or unsaid) falls mid-line, and the double slash is the actual line break. Capitalized words get emphasis.
The lines do not fit into a specific, fixed metre, instead mixing iambs and spondees and dactyls and all manner of other technically-named anxiety in society to achieve a rolling sort of feel throughout the lines. In addition to the metre, the verse form is written in rhymed couplets (AABB CCDD EEFF), and it uses a lot of ingemination and assonance. For instance, wait at the 2nd and 3rd lines of the poem for the fashion he uses multiple types of alliteration within his lines: "And all I inquire is a tall ship and the st ars to st eer her by/And the w heel'due south kick and the westward ind's song and the w hite sail's shaking". (Distressing if I dislocated y'all with so many italics - it's simply that Masefield has deliberately echoed repeated sounds throughout his lines, and sometimes they come in a row, and sometimes they interlock.) He uses assonance (repetition of similar vowel sounds) as well. The utilize of alliteration and assonance is decidedly conscious, and lends itself to memorization and recitation.
Read on a literal level, the verse form is about a yearning for adventure, or a form of wanderlust. The speaker wants to exist on board a ship, accept his turn at the captain, and earn a practiced night's sleep. On a metaphorical level, the poem is often read to mean that the speaker wants to lead a meaningful life, in which instance the final line ("And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick'southward over") is read as referring to decease. I call up information technology not unfair to read it as a deliberate reference to Village and his soliloquy in Human activity Iii, sc. ane, by the fashion ("to slumber: maybe to dream").
Masefield prepare to body of water at the age of 15, and wrote quite a number of poems about sailors and the body of water. "Bounding main-Fever" first appeared in print in 1902 in a collection entitled Common salt-Water Ballads. He became Poet Laureate of England in 1930, and served in that position until his death in 1967. In 2005, "Bounding main-Fever" was selected as the favorite sea poem in U.k. by Magma magazine. It was the winner by "a nautical mile."
Source: https://kellyrfineman.livejournal.com/406114.html
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