# John Masefield and barque "The Wanderer"



## beedeesea

I never knew until I read the following article, that Masefield had written a book, in prose and poetry, in which he mentioned Dun Laoghaire/Kingstown, my birthplace. The story is about the barque named "The Wanderer", and shows a couple of nice photos.

http://localwiki.net/dl/THE_WANDERER_AT_KINGSTOWN

Brian


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## DURANGO

I believe there is a wonderful painting of her by the great maritime artist Jack Spurling I recently read a book about her it is available on amazon at a very reasonable price regards .


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## spongebob

Thanks for that thread Brian, I have enjoyed a lot of John Masefield in the past and once memorised several verses of his epic Reynard the Fox for a school recital, a long time ago.
He certainly contributed a lot to the maritime heritage.

Bob


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## ben27

good day beedeesea,sm,today.06:31.re:john masefield and the barque"the wanderer"thank you for a great link.when i was at school many moons ago.we were always quoted he's poem,i must go down to the sea again,it may have been the reason i went to sea.it is a poem that stirs the imagination. regards ben27


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## stein

DURANGO said:


> I believe there is a wonderful painting of her by the great maritime artist Jack Spurling I recently read a book about her it is available on amazon at a very reasonable price regards .


My copy of the book had the Spurling painting on the front. I believe it was made for the book. And I strongly suspect that the book you read was the Masefield one, today nobody today has heard of the Wanderer but those who have read Masefield, and in his time he was rather unique in his enthusiasm for the ship. :sweat:


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## beedeesea

Thanks for the interesting replies, fellas.

Brian


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## Barrie Youde

#3

Reynard's Last Run

On he went with a galloping rally
Past Maesbury Clump for Wan Brook Valley.
The blood in his veins went romping high,
"Go on, go on, to the earth or die."
The air of the downs went purely past
Till he felt the glory of going fast.............

Which mariner, with a whole gale and a spring flood tide behind him and running for the shelter of a safe anchorage, has not "felt the glory of going fast"?

This is magic stuff, first learned at school, almost sixty years ago.

Many thanks for the reminder!


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## LouisB

Barrie Youde said:


> #3
> 
> Reynard's Last Run
> 
> On he went with a galloping rally
> Past Maesbury Clump for Wan Brook Valley.
> The blood in his veins went romping high,
> "Go on, go on, to the earth or die."
> The air of the downs went purely past
> Till he felt the glory of going fast.............
> 
> Which mariner, with a whole gale and a spring flood tide behind him and running for the shelter of a safe anchorage, has not "felt the glory of going fast"?
> 
> This is magic stuff, first learned at school, almost sixty years ago.
> 
> Many thanks for the reminder!


For some reason the words of Sea Fever still stick in my mind from all those years ago "and all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by" You would think after sixty years it would have faded into oblivion - just like I am. 

LouisB. (Scribe)


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## ben27

good day barrie youde.sm.today.00:38.re:john masefield.#7.great post barrie,you always remember the good ones,regards ben27


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## Barrie Youde

#9

It's the adrenalin! Nothing else! And never forgotten.

It's exactly the same feeling as riding a horse over fences. You keep going at speed for as long as you can; and then there comes a point where and when you have to get your horse (or your ship) in hand and under complete control in order then to manoeuvre properly and safely at close quarters. Get it right and the feeling is magic! Get it wrong, and it can be very expensive!


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## Shipbuilder

Keen as I am on the maritime stuff, as far as I am concerned, his best was Reynard the Fox! It wasn't his last run though, was it? He escaped and went home safe!(==D)
Bob
And there, as he lay, he saw the vale. 
That a struggling sunlight silvered pale, 
The Deerlip Brook like a strip of steel, 
The Nun's Wood Yews where the rabbits squeal, 
The great grass square of the Roman Fort, 
And the smoke in the elms at Crendon Court. 
And above the smoke in the elm-tree tops. 
Was the beech-clump's blue. Blown Hilcote Copse, 
Where he and his mates had long made merry 
In the bloody joys of the rabbit-herry. 
And there as he lay and looked, the cry 
Of the hounds at head came rousing by ; 
He bent his bones in the blackthorn dim. 
But the cry of the hounds was not for him,


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## Barrie Youde

#11

many thanks!

I hadn't read "Reynard The Fox" but I remember well "Reynard's Last Run", from which my #7 is taken.


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## spongebob

Dare I mention it, I stole a verse or two from Reynard the Fox for a squirrel poem

That cry behind him made him chill
They were nearer now and they meant to kill 
They meant to run him until his blood 
Clogged in his heart as did his brush with mud

Till his back bent up and his tail hung flagging
And his belly and brush were filth from dragging
Till he stood stock still dead beat and dirty
With nothing but teeth against the thirty
.
And all the way to the blinding end
He would meet with men and have none his friend
Men to holler him and men to run him
With yells to stagger and stones to stun him

Men to head him with whips to beat him
Teeth to mangle and mouths to eat him
And all the way that wild high crying
To chill his blood with the thought of dying

The horns and the cheers and the drum like thunder
Of the horses hooves stamping the meadows under
So Cyril upped his brush and went with a will 
For the clump of forest on Efenechtyd, hill

(With Apologies to John Masefield and his poem “Reynard the Fox” for the last five verses) 

Bob


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## Norman Trewren

Still think 'McAndrew's Hymn' has a lot going for it - Predestination in the stride o' yon connecting rod!'

Norman


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## Steve Hodges

stein said:


> My copy of the book had the Spurling painting on the front. I believe it was made for the book. And I strongly suspect that the book you read was the Masefield one, today nobody today has heard of the Wanderer but those who have read Masefield, and in his time he was rather unique in his enthusiasm for the ship. :sweat:


I found a 1930 second edition of Masefield's "The Wanderer of Liverpool" in a second-hand bookshop a few years ago. It has a colour print of the vessel under full sail pasted onto the first frontispiece page, which I assume is Spurling's painting. It must be magnificent in a larger size. For whatever reason, Masefield certainly loved that ship -
" So singing, she wanders the waters with white wing on wing
Star-lighted, star-guided, the sea-gleaming beautiful thing. "


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## Barrie Youde

#14

You are right, Norman. It is an epic indeed.

But please allow me to point out that McAndrew's Hymn is Kipling and not Masefield.


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