Cargoes (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: John Masefield
- First Published: 1903
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: England or English people, Economics, Ships, Sailing or sailors, Business or business people, Sea or seafaring life, Bible, biblical imagery, or biblical symbolism
The Poem
“Cargoes” is a short lyric poem consisting of three five-line stanzas. In each, Masefield describes a different kind of ship. The first two lines of each stanza describe the ship moving through water; the last three list the different cargoes the ships are carrying.
The ship in stanza 1 is a quinquireme, a large vessel rowed by groups of five oarsmen. Masefield’s ship is being rowed from “distant Ophir,” a region in either Arabia or Africa at the southern end of the Red Sea, to the northern end of that sea. (Masefield must have intended the term...
[The entire page is 1471 words long]
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