John Masefield Quotes - Page 2

My road leads me seawards To the white dipping sails.

And he who gives a child a treat Makes joy-bells ring in Heaven's street, And he who gives a child a home Builds palaces in Kingdom come, And she who gives a baby birth Brings Saviour Christ again to Earth.

Heaven to me's a fair blue stretch of sky, Earth's jest a dusty road.

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries.

I have seen the Lady April bringing the daffodils, Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.

It may be that we cease; we cannot tell. Even if we cease, life is a miracle.

O lovely lily clean, O lily springing green, O lily bursting white, Dear lily of delight, Spring in my heart agen That I may flower to men.

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.

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.

Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain, And the watch fire under stars, and sleep, and the road again.

Commonplace people dislike tragedy because they dare not suffer and cannot exult.

The distant soul can shake the distant friend's soul and make the longing felt, over untold miles.

Life's battle is a conquest for the strong; The meaning shows in the defeated thing.

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.

I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain.

His face was filled with broken commandments.

Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French.

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.

All ye that pass by! While we least think it he prepares his Mate. Mate, and the King's pawn played, it never ceases, Though all the earth is dust of taken pieces.

In this life he laughs longest who laughs last.

Death opens unknown doors. It is most grand to die.

It ought to have gangsters, and aeroplanes and a lot of automatic pistols.

Most roads lead men homewards, My road leads me forth

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.

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.