Once By The Pacific

Once By The Pacific: analysis

Introduction

This fourteen-line poem by Robert Frost describes a storm on the Pacific coast that seems to threaten far more than the coast. A speaker watches great waves and low clouds from the shore. The waves seem to be planning something that "water never did to land before" (line 4).

The poem moves from a scene of weather to a warning about an age of darkness. It ends at the end of the world, when God's "last Put out the Light" is spoken. The words are short and plain. Much of the menace comes from what the speaker will not say outright.

Summary

Lines 1–4 open on a stormy shore. Water breaks into spray with a loud, misty noise. The great waves seem to look over the smaller waves coming in ahead of them. They seem to be thinking of doing something to the shore. What they have in mind is something "water never did to land before".

Lines 5–6 turn to the sky. The clouds hang low and look shaggy, "hairy in the skies". The speaker compares them to locks of hair blown forward over gleaming eyes. The comparison gives the storm a face.

In lines 7–9 the speaker admits that no one could be sure. Still, it looked as if the shore was lucky to have a cliff behind it. The cliff, in turn, was lucky to have a whole continent behind it. The land seems to stand in layers against the sea.

Lines 10–11 predict what is coming. It looked as if a night "of dark intent" was on its way. The speaker then widens the claim: not only a night, but an age. Line 12 gives a blunt warning. Someone "had better be prepared for rage".

The last two lines widen the threat again. More than ocean-water will be broken before the end comes. That end is the moment when God speaks a final command, "Put out the Light". The poem stops on the word "spoken".

Themes and meaning

The first theme is nature as a hostile will. The poem gives the sea a mind. The waves "looked over" the others and "thought of doing something" (lines 2–3). The clouds have hair, and the storm seems to have eyes. Nature here is not a view to admire but a force with plans aimed at the land.

A second theme is how thin our protection is. The shore is "lucky" in its cliff, and the cliff in its continent (lines 8–9). Luck is a weak word for safety. It suggests that the defence is chance, not design. The claim also sits inside a hedge: "You could not tell, and yet it looked as if". The speaker offers comfort and doubts it in the same breath.

A third theme is the end of time. The threat grows line by line. It begins with the shore, becomes "a night of dark intent", and then "an age" (lines 10–11). The final couplet reaches the end of everything, when God speaks the last command. The phrase "Put out the Light" can be read as the undoing of creation. Several readers hear it as a reversal of the biblical command that made light.

A fourth theme is rage whose owner is never named. Line 12 says "Someone had better be prepared for rage" but does not say whose rage. It could belong to the sea, to God, or to people. The phrase "more than ocean-water broken" (line 13) hints that people or their works will break too. The poem can be read as a storm scene or as a warning about human violence. The text leaves both open.

Tone

The tone moves from uneasy observation to prophecy. The opening lines describe the storm, with a trace of dry wit in waves that "thought of doing something". The hedges "You could not tell" and "it looked as if" keep the speaker cautious.

The word "lucky" carries a wry, uneasy humour. Then the voice hardens. Line 12 is flat, colloquial and menacing. The casual "had better" makes the warning sound more certain, not less.

The final couplet is grave and sweeping. The speaker stops describing and starts foretelling. The poem can be read as ominous from the start, with the early lightness only masking the threat.

Form and structure

The poem has 14 lines in 1 stanza of 14 lines. It is written in rhymed couplets, with the computed scheme AABBCCDDEFGGHH. Its length and metre make it a kind of sonnet built from couplets rather than quatrains.

The metre is iambic pentameter, with lines of 10 to 11 syllables. Most lines are regular. The eighth, eleventh, thirteenth and fourteenth lines each carry one extra unstressed syllable. The last couplet ends on "broken" and "spoken", a falling feminine rhyme that makes the close sound heavy.

The computed scheme treats line 9 and line 10 as unrhymed. The words "continent" and "intent" share an ending, but the stress falls on different syllables. The ear hears only a faint, off-balance rhyme at the point where the poem turns from the land to the coming night.

Poetic devices

metaphor line 1

The shattered water Water is treated as something solid that can shatter like glass. The word sets up the breaking that returns in line 13.

alliteration line 1

made a misty din The repeated m sound softens the line before the hard word din. Sight and sound blur together, as spray and noise do in a storm.

personification line 2

Great waves looked over others coming in The waves look and, in the next line, think. The sea gains a watching, scheming mind.

enjambment line 3

And thought of doing something to the shore The sentence runs on into line 4 before the plan is defined. The delay mimics a wave gathering before it breaks.

simile line 6

Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes The clouds become hair falling over glaring eyes. The storm gains a face, and a threatening one.

repetition line 10

It looked as if The phrase repeats line 7. Each prediction is framed as appearance, which keeps the speaker's claims hedged even as they grow darker.

parallelism line 9

The cliff in being backed by continent The line copies the pattern of line 8. The chain of shore, cliff and continent builds a sense of layered defence.

amplification line 11

not only a night, an age The speaker corrects and enlarges the threat mid-line. A single night of storm becomes a whole era of darkness.

understatement line 12

Someone had better be prepared for rage. The everyday phrase had better and the vague Someone understate an enormous threat. The flatness makes the warning more chilling.

allusion line 14

Put out the Light The capitals mark the words as a spoken command, quoted as if from scripture or drama. Readers hear it as a reversal of the creation of light, or as an echo of Othello.

feminine rhyme line 13

ocean-water broken Broken rhymes with spoken on an unstressed final syllable. The closing couplet falls away, like the light going out.

Words worth knowing

din

A loud, continuous noise. Here, the roar of breaking surf.

locks

Locks of hair, not door locks. The clouds look like hair blown over a face.

backed

Supported or protected from behind, as a wall backs a line of defenders.

age

An era or long period of history, not old age.

Context

The poem appeared in Robert Frost's book West-Running Brook, published in 1928.

What readers have said

• Courtney read the poem as God's wrath and the coming end of the world. Courtney, 2004
• Tony disagreed, reading it as God protecting people and holding off the coming evil until their time has come. Tony, 2005
• Jackie read it as a poem about the power of nature, with the water conspiring against a shore saved only by its cliff, and heard the last line as a reversal of the biblical command that made light. Jackie, 2005
• Scott pointed out that "Put out the Light" echoes a line Othello speaks in Shakespeare's play just before he kills the woman he wrongly believes betrayed him. scott, 2007
• Kari, analysing the poem for a class, read it as the voice of a woman deeply hurt by someone she trusted, whose rage is building toward revenge or confrontation. Kari, 2006
• Quilty, writing from the San Francisco peninsula, felt the poem captures a child's fear of fog, wind, waves, the unknown and the night. Quilty, 2006