The nation is clearly still in love with his ringing call:

“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.”

Masefield’s “Sea-Fever” topped a ten-strong shortlist for the SeaBritain 2005 Favourite Sea Poem selected over the summer by readers of Magma Poetry Magazine, in association with SeaBritain 2005 and the National Maritime Museum.

Martin Newell, the only living poet on the shortlist, came a somewhat unexpected second with his “Song of the Waterlily”, illustrated by marine artist James Dodds.

Masefield’s “dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack” propelled his “Cargoes” into a strong third place, closely followed by Matthew Arnold’s somewhat morose “Dover Beach”.

One of the surprises in the poll was the relatively low vote for “The Ancient Mariner”. Coleridge’s sea-epic appears well known but not well loved by Britain’s poetry readers. Much less familiar poems, like Elizabeth Bishop’s “At the Fishhouses”, Charles Causley’s “Convoy” and even the anonymous 8th century Anglo-Saxon “The Seafarer” attracted more votes.

The search for the SeaBritain 2005 Favourite Sea Poem is part of this year’s nationwide celebrations of the sea inspired by the Bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar.