John Masefield (1878 - 1967) was never much of a lover of poetry when he was young, but he did spend several years on board the HMS Conway to train for a sea-faring life. Here he heard myriad tales from the sea, and spent time reading and writing, before moving to another ship, and another...

Although John's love of the ocean's beauty did not fade, his love of working at sea did. Then, when in 1895 he came across Duncan Campbell Scott's poem The Piper of Aril, he could not help but become a poet himself.

In 1902, one of his most famous poems - Sea Fever - was born:

Sea Fever, which originally appeared in Salt-Water Ballards in 1902, and has been reproduced here under the Public Domain licence.