Books: Of Ships & Wonder

ON THE HILL (122 pp.)—John Masefield—Macmillan($1.50).

"The English poets," John Masefield once advised a reporter, "are not remote; they mingle with the crowd. They are not masters of men's brains, but companions of their hearts."

However badly his description may fit some of poetry's modern navel-contem-platers, Britain's Poet Laureate at least has remained true to his credo. From the day in 1902 when his first slim volume of Salt-Water Ballads rolled off a London press, John Masefield the poet has kept close companionship with the hearts of a generation of British and U.S. readers. In rhythms as forthright as the beat of a...