Two voices, the Sea and a Brook, trade short, charged lines. The Sea beckons the Brook to come closer, but when the Brook asks to grow first, the Sea refuses. It doesn’t want another Sea—it wants the Brook just as it is, eager and unfinished. The demand feels impatient, even possessive: “Come now.”
In the second half, everything shifts. The Sea now addresses another Sea, telling it to leave, then claims “I am he / You cherished.” It’s as if the little Brook once admired this larger self, but now that it has matured into a Sea of its own, it gets brushed aside. The closing line, “Wisdom is stale — to Me,” is cutting. The original Sea finds all that learning and experience tiresome. The mood is capricious and a little cold, like someone who courts innocence but loses interest the moment it deepens into knowledge or equality. Dickinson leaves the feeling of a quiet, unfair betrayal.