John Masefield Quotations

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

And may we find when ended is the page, Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.

The corn that makes the holy bread By which the soul of man is fed, The holy bread, the food unpriced, Thy everlasting mercy, Christ.

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.

So death obscures your gentle form, So memory strives to make the darkness bright; And, in that heap of rocks, your body lies, Part of the island till the planet ends, My gentle comrade, beautiful and wise, Part of this crag this bitter surge offends, While I, who pass, a little obscure thing, War with this force, and breathe, and am its king.

So shall I fight, so shall I tread, In this long war beneath the stars; So shall a glory wreathe my head, So shall I faint and show the scars, Until this case, this clogging mould, Be smithied all to kingly gold.

In the power and splendor of the universe, inspiration waits for the millions to come. Man has only to strive for it. Poems greater than the Iliad, plays greater than Macbeth, stories more engaging than Don Quixote await their seeker and finder.

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.

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

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