Seascape
Seascape - meaning Summary
Attention to Sea and Memory
The speaker addresses a stranger, urging stillness to fully perceive the island and the sea. Vivid coastal images—chalk cliffs, shingle, gulls, receding surf—are presented not as spectacle but as sensory material that “wanders” into ear and mind. Distant ships and drifting clouds extend the scene outward, suggesting how a present perception can enter and move in memory. The poem links attentive observation with recollection.
Read Complete AnalysesLook, stranger, at this island now The leaping light for your delight discovers, Stand stable here And silent be, That through the channels of the ear May wander like a river The swaying sound of the sea. Here at the small field's ending pause Where the chalk wall falls to the foam, and its tall ledges Oppose the pluck And knock of the tide, And the shingle scrambles after the suck- ing surf, and the gull lodges A moment on its sheer side. Far off like floating seeds the ships Diverge on urgent voluntary errands; And the full view Indeed may enter And move in memory as now these clouds do, That pass the harbour mirror And all the summer through the water saunter.
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