Masefield is between 's high flights and 's pseudo-natural speech. All the poems have good readable stories, and they are never painful to read, and some stanzas or couplets are delightful; but the whole sinks like a comfy hammock between the earlier and later greats.
So having fought the Pentland War and won A name through Britain and a peace secure He felt the red horizon cast her lure To set him hunting of the setting sun To take a ship and sail West through the grassless pastures of the whale West to the wilderness of nothing sure But unseen countries and the deeds undone
It helps that Masefield wasn't scrupulous about sticking to any close version of the stories, so one gets several Tristan-and-Iseult stories with different characterization and indeed plots (and Arthur letting Kai get in trouble for trying to keep Tristan from protecting a royal pig is excellent, like a scrap from The Once and Future King). Tristan's Singing has a chunk of saved-by-Nature that I found affecting, like mild . Simkin, Tomkin and Jack is almost steampunk.
Find in a Library: John Masefield