Once by the Pacific
Once by the Pacific - meaning Summary
Sea as Apocalyptic Force
Frost presents a stormy coastline where successive, towering waves seem to conspire against the shore. The poem moves from visual description to a widening sense of threat: clouds, cliffs, and continent amplify the scale until the sea’s violence feels like an apocalyptic force. The speaker treats the scene as portentous, suggesting human unpreparedness before a larger, even divine, reckoning. The final lines link natural destruction to an ultimate end, making the poem less about weather than about impending, almost cosmic, rupture.
Read Complete AnalysesThe shattered water made a misty din. Great waves looked over others coming in, And thought of doing something to the shore That water never did to land before. The clouds were low and hairy in the skies, Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes. You could not tell, and yet it looked as if The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff, The cliff in being backed by continent; It looked as if a night of dark intent Was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage. There would be more than ocean-water broken Before God’s last Put out the light was spoken.
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