In 1894 he became an apprentice aboard the
Gilcruix, which was bound for a thirteen-week voyage to Chile around Cape Horn. Masefield later described the ship's stormy cruise in his semiautobiographical poem
Dauber (1913).
Released from duty because of poor health, Masefield was hospitalized for a time before he returned to the Priory in Ledbury in 1894. In March of that year, Masefield sailed for New York to join the crew of the Bidston Hill. Upon his arrival, however, he decided to stay in New York, where he lived for a time as a vagrant. Then, after working at odd jobs, Masefield secured a position in a carpet factory in Yonkers, where he remained for the next two years. Returning to London in summer 1897, he first took a job in a small office and then became a bank clerk in 1898. During his three-year stint as a clerk, Masefield had his first successful poem published in 1899 in the Outlook. In 1900 he met William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory. He was invited regularly to Yeats's Monday evenings at his flat in Bloomsbury, where he moved in 1901.
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