Sail Away
Sail Away - meaning Summary
A Voyage Toward Union
The poem imagines a secret voyage with a beloved into a boundless, aimless sea as a metaphor for intimate escape and release. It contrasts day’s whispered plan with evening’s return of shore life, suggesting obligations and unfinished tasks delay total freedom. The speaker yearns for a moment when "chains will be off" and the boat dissolves into night, implying longing for complete union, dissolution of self, or final departure from worldly bonds.
Read Complete AnalysesEarly in the day it was whispered that we should sail in a boat, only thou and I, and never a soul in the world would know of this our pilgrimage to no country and to no end. In that shoreless ocean, at thy silently listening smile my songs would swell in melodies, free as waves, free from all bondage of words. Is the time not come yet? Are there works still to do? Lo, the evening has come down upon the shore and in the fading light the seabirds come flying to their nests. Who knows when the chains will be off, and the boat, like the last glimmer of sunset, vanish into the night?
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