Poem by John Masefield

The Turn of the Tide

An’ Bill can have my sea-boots, Nigger Jim can have my knife,
  You can divvy up the dungarees an’ bed,
An’ the ship can have my blessing, an’ the Lord can have my life,
  An’ sails an’ fish my body when I’m dead.

An’ dreaming down below there in the tangled greens an’ blues,
  Where the sunlight shudders golden round about,
I shall hear the ships complainin’ an’ the cursin’ of the crews,
  An’ be sorry when the watch is tumbled out.

I shall hear them hilly-hollying the weather crojick brace,
  And the sucking of the wash about the hull;
When they chanty up the topsail I’ll be hauling in my place,
  For my soul will follow seawards like a gull.

I shall hear the blocks a-grunting in the bumpkins over-side,
  An’ the slatting of the storm-sails on the stay,
An’ the rippling of the catspaw at the making of the tide,
  An’ the swirl and splash of porpoises at play.

An’ Bill can have my sea-boots, Nigger Jim can have my knife,
  You can divvy up the whack I haven’t scofft,
An’ the ship can have my blessing and the Lord can have my life,
  For it’s time I quit the deck and went aloft.

1. Fever Ship
2. Sea-Change
3. Hell’s Pavement
4. Harbour-Bar
5. A Valediction (Liverpool Docks)

Print

1559 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version