man-of-war-bird

Updated: June 20, 2025

He bought a copy of Chaucer's poems, stayed up till dawn reading it, and for the first time was sure of his future occupation. John Masefield is the real man-of-war-bird imagined by Walt Whitman. He is the bird self-conscious, the wild bird plus the soul of the poet.

William Lyon Phelps - The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century