John Masefield was born on June 1, 1878 in Ledbury, England. After his parents’ deaths, he left his education in Warwick School and went away to live his life at sea on the HMS Conway. On this ship, Masefield spent his time reading, writing, and listening to stories told by sailors. Soon enough, he left the ship and settled in New York to become a writer and a story teller. The inspiration in which he obtained his ideas was from the experiences onboard the ship. “Cargoes” first appeared in a collection of sea poems titled Salt-Water Ballads. This collection included many ballads and poems that were published in 1902. “Cargoes” is a lyrical poem with three stanzas, each with 5 lines. In each stanza, the first line has twelve syllables and the second line has eleven syllables. Also, the first line of each stanza omits the definite article and none of the stanzas have complete sentences. The stanzas are also in chronological order. By doing so, Masefield shows the continuation of history. The poem contains masculine rhyme, which is when the final syllable on one line mimics the sound of the final syllable of another line (John Masefield). Throughout “Cargoes,” there is a listing in every stanza to emphasize the importance of the riches, but in the third stanza Masefield changes the idea of riches into dirty items to portray that not everyone lives the rich, and that some have a difficult time with their lifestyle. The overall theme of the poem “Cargoes” is how one looks can reflect the culture, government, and technology of civilization over the centuries. Masefield uses a mixture of historical periods to create a romantic cargo in stanza one and two in which he described as being exotic treasure contrasted with the modern cargo of stanza three, which is practical industrial dirty (John Masefield). Within the poem, he creates an allusion in the first stanza