Sunday 27 September 2009

Sunday Quotation


excerpt from

Cargoes


by John Masefield
1878 - 1967

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days.
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rail, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-wear and cheap tin trays.



photo Jeremy White

19 comments:

  1. hello friko - my grandma had a set of books filled with pictures and stories from the turn of the last century. pictures like this were a source of deep fascination to me as a young boy. now i read these words and see this picture, i feel the fascination coninues! thankyou for sharing this. steven

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  2. It would be interesting to compare cargos in the bellies of ships these days, with the cargo list you have from back then.

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  3. Oh, that is so cool looking! We have cargo ships coming in to Savannah all the time, but they surely don't look like that! Great photo!! Hugs, Silke

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  4. Hi Friko

    My Great Great Grandfather was the Master of a Pilot's cutter on Southampton Water for about 40 years from 1880. What Masefield describes, would have been a common sight to him.

    Thanks for such an evocative post.

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  5. Very environmentally - unfriendly with all that smoke, but much more interesting than container ships.
    You've done it again - turned the clock back for me. I remember learning that poem at school!

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  6. This excerpt has echoes of bygone days when production was everything and consumption was minimum. When Britain had a pride of place in world manufacturing. Adorable quote. Many thanks.

    Greetings from London.

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  7. I remember this from school - we had to recite it until we were word perfect

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  8. I don't think I ever heard that poem so it must be "the other side of the pond" kind of thing.

    Pollution started early, didn't it?

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  9. Am somehow filled with the thought that life was truer, deeper, being able to spend time with what one did, back then.

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  10. What an atmospheric picture that is. I have left you a message on my blog Friko.

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  11. I love cargoes, one of my favourites. Quinqueremes (Sp?) of Nineva sound so wonderful
    Thank you for your comment on my blog. I am sure we will soon get to know each other. My October garden should appear by the end of the week if you are interested.

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  12. Superb match of picture to verse, they each give something to the other.

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  13. Both image and words give reason to pause. Well done!

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  14. What a fantastic photo. And the quotation ... so many yummy consonants and lots of sibilance ... love it. Good exercise for the vocal organs, that one.

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  15. steven - I'm glad I brought back memories

    Bonnie - I expect there'd still be cheap tin trays

    Silke - thank you for the compliment,

    Martin H - I'm glad you like it; you must have interesting family tales to tell.

    When I am Rich - fantastic rhythm, it just begs to be read out loud.

    A Cuban in London - Greetings to you, Cuban, lucky you.

    snailbeachshepherdess - do you still know it off by heart?

    Darlene - my goodness, it sure it did.

    robert - perhaps so.

    Twiglet - thanks, Twiglet, let's make a date

    Withy Brook - and the stately Spanish Galleons!

    Dave King - thank you, Dave

    Prospero - always was, always will be

    Rose Marie - thank you very much

    Fran Hill - Go on, read it out loud, you know you want to.

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  16. Hi Friko! What a gritty evocative verse! And the photo is a perfect description! So real. btw, Moliere wrote in rhyming couplets in his French plays with rhymthic lines (don't recall exactly the meter). xxox

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  17. Poor old Masefield is so unfashionable now that poems of real quality such as this (almost a proto-rap piece) seldom get an airing. Thanks on JM's behalf!

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  18. I liked that - photo and poem. My great grandfather was a Cape Breton merchant sailor, lost at sea in the late 1890's. I don't know what his ship carried, aside from the passengers who perished with him.

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