Waves

Waves - meaning Summary

Nature Overrules Human Order

Emerson’s short lyric contrasts the relentless, physical force of the sea with human institutions of time and worship. The speaker hears only waves against rock, not church bells; the tide “scorns the minster clock” and shatters human measures of time. The poem presents nature as indifferent and overwhelming, capable of undoing human rituals and temporal order and reminding readers of the limits of civilized structures before elemental power.