Trade Winds

A Creed by John Masefield
Read by Liam Neely
Music: Edgar Galeano

I HOLD that when a person dies
His soul returns again to earth;
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise
Another mother gives him birth.

With sturdier limbs and brighter brain
The old soul takes the road again.



Such is my own belief and trust;
This hand, this hand that holds the pen,
Has many a hundred times been dust

And turned, as dust, to dust again;
These eyes of mine have blinked and shown
In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon.


All that I rightly think or do,
Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast,

Is curse or blessing justly due
For sloth or effort in the past.
My life's a statement of the sum
Of vice indulged, or overcome.


I know that in my lives to be
My sorry heart will ache and burn,
And worship, unavailingly,
The woman whom I used to spurn,
And shake to see another have
The love I spurned, the love she gave.