Tennyson’s brooding poem reflects
his deep anguish for Arthur Hallam, his
beloved friend who died unexpectedly
in 1833. Hallam’s death affected Tennyson so profoundly that the poet all but
ceased publishing his works for nearly
ten years.
Where is this poem written?
How does Tennyson masterfully portray his sorrow by showing rather than
telling?
What is significant about Tennyson’s
images? In the second stanza, he employs the image of a happy fisherman’s
boy, followed by the image of a sailor
lad. The third stanza contains “stately
ships” returning home. This sequence
(little boy, sailor lad, ships going home)
gives the impression of passing time
and of youth, prime, and death. Tennyson appropriates these images to reveal
the fact that he cannot harness Time
from marching onward, and he misses
a friend whose company he will never
enjoy again.
How is “tender grace of a day …” an
effective description of his loss?
Why does Tennyson use “cold gray
stones” in the first stanza and then
“crags” in the last stanza?
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
shall fall asunder.” How does he successfully make this comparison?
… Wanting the sticky, salty
sweetness
Of the strong wind and shattered
spray;
Wanting the loud sound and the soft
sound
Of the big surf that breaks all day.
Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Masefield longs to sail by starlight,
whereas Millay wishes to hear and touch
the things that remind her of a summer
haunt on the Maine seacoast: weedy mussels, rotting hulls (the frame or body of a
vessel without the rigging and mast), the
fog bell, and the groaning piers. Millay
begins her poem by contemplating the
reasons for her depression (“searching
my heart for its true sorrow”) and discovers it is homesickness for the water.
… Then a mile of warm sea-scented
beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm
appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp
scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys
and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to
each!
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
John Masefield (1878-1967)
… Good by to pain and care! I take
Mine ease to-day:
Here where these sunny waters break,
And ripples this keen breeze, I shake
All burdens from the heart, all weary
thoughts away.
I draw a freer breath—I seem
Like all I see—
Waves in the sun—the white-winged
gleam
Of sea-birds in the slanting beam—
And far-off sails which flit before the
south-wind free.
“Meeting at Night” is usually printed
along with Browning’s other short selections “Parting at Morning,” “Home
Thoughts, from Abroad,” and “
Home-Thoughts, from the Sea.” Browning discloses no longings for capricious winds
and tide here. In “Meeting at Night,” the
sea is simply a channel a friend must traverse to meet another dear friend. There
is a feeling of needing to get to a desired
destination, which is achieved by quick,
incomplete sentences. How do the descriptions contribute to that feeling?
How does Browning reveal to us that the
meeting is desirable and anticipated?
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;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s
song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and
a gray dawn breaking.
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
“Sea Fever” addresses an entirely different mood: the sheer need to be out on
the sea. The “call of the running tide” is
a clarion call that must be heeded. What
abundant, tumultuous imagery Masefield supplies in the following stanzas:
he asks for a “windy day with the white
clouds flying,” for “flung spray and
the blown spume” and the cry of sea
gulls. The wind is likened to a “whetted
knife.” Masefield’s masterpiece is similar in tone to Edna St. Vincent Millay’s
“Exiled.”
Another poet spurning the “dusty
town” for a promenade along the beach,
Whittier filled this marvelous poem
with words and phrases that plainly
resonate serenity: fresh breeze, clean
and free, new life, healing, cool spray,
ease, serene, mild, pleasant, passive,
and quietude. He comes to the sea seeking rejuvenation, for the sea is a sanctuary providing freedom and ease for tired
brains; it is not the source of mysterious
sorrow that it is for other poets. Whittier then compares the restfulness of his
soul in such settings to the restfulness
we should experience when “Time’s veil
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; — on the French
coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of
England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the
tranquil bay.
The speaker, looking out on the English Channel, begins his poem in a contemplative tone, eliciting conversation
with his loved one. The scene appears
peaceful (calm, tranquil, light, fair, and
sweet are adjectives emphasized in the
first stanza), but the speaker is far from
tranquil. The second stanza reveals this
shift in tone.
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