Analysis of A Pier-Head Chorus

John Masefield 1878 (Ledbury) – 1967 (Abingdon)



Oh I'll be chewing salted horse and biting flinty bread,
And dancing with the stars to watch, upon the fo'c's'le head,
Hearkening to the bow-wash and the welter of the tread
Of a thousand tons of clipper running free.

For the tug has got the tow-rope and will take us to the Downs,
Her paddles churn the river-wrack to muddy greens and browns,
And I have given river-wrack and all the filth of towns
For the rolling, combing cresters of the sea.

We'll sheet the mizzen-royals home and shimmer down the Bay,
The sea-line blue with billows, the land-line blurred and grey;
The bow-wash will be piling high and thrashing into spray,
As the hooker's fore-foot tramples down the swell.

She'll log a giddy seventeen and rattle out the reel,
The weight of all the run-out line will be a thing to feel,
As the bacca-quidding shell-back shambles aft to take the wheel,
And the sea-sick little middy strikes the bell.


Scheme AAAB CCCB DDDE FFFE
Poetic Form
Metre 11110101010101 0101011101011 110110010101 10101110101 101110110111101 01010101110101 01110101010111 1010101101 1101101010101 0111110011101 01111101010011 10101110101 11010101010101 01110111110111 1011111011101 0011101101
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 901
Words 164
Sentences 4
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 44
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 178
Words per stanza (avg) 40
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on March 05, 2023

51 sec read
10

John Masefield

John Edward Masefield, OM was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death in 1967. He is remembered as the author of the classic children's novels The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights, and poems, including "The Everlasting Mercy" and "Sea-Fever". more…

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