101 Quotes by John Masefield

The social states of human kinds Are made by multitudes of minds, And after multitudes of years A little human growth appears Worth having, even to the soul Who sees most plain it's not the whole.

Each one could be a Jesus mild, Each one has been a little child, A little child with laughing look, A lovely white unwritten book; A book that God will take, my friend, As each goes out at journey's end.

Lord, give to me who are old and rougher The things that little children suffer, And let keep bright and undefiled The young years of the little child.

When the last sea is sailed and last shallow charted, When the last field is reaped and the last harvest stored, When the last fire is out and the last guest departed Grant the last prayer that I pray, Be good to me, O Lord.

When Life knocks at the door no one can wait, When Death makes his arrest we have to go.

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.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

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.

Man cannot call the brimming instant back; Time's an affair of instants spun to days; If man must make an instant gold, or black, Let him, he may; but Time must go his ways. Life may be duller for an instant's blaze. Life's an affair of instants spun to years, Instants are only cause of all these tears.