Man in Black
Man in Black - meaning Summary
A Figure of Concentrated Grief
The poem presents a bleak coastal scene where cold, industrial details and winter sea imagery frame a solitary figure dressed entirely in black. The speaker watches this person stand motionless on a distant spit, becoming the focus that seems to hold rocks, air, and landscape in a single charged moment. The poem explores isolation, attention, and the way one concentrated presence can transform a desolate setting into something intensely apprehended.
Read Complete AnalysesWhere the three magenta Breakwaters take the shove And suck of the grey sea To the left, and the wave Unfists against the dun Barb-wired headland of The Deer Island prison With its trim piggeries, Hen huts and cattle green To the right, and March ice Glazes the rock pools yet, Snuff-colored sand cliffs rise Over a great stone spit Bared by each falling tide, And you, across those white Stones, strode out in you dead Black coat, black shoes, and your Black hair till there you stood, Fixed vortex on the far Tip, riveting stones, air, All of it, together.
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