A broken ship’s mast lies cast up on a rocky shore, surrounded by beach roses, pines, and gulls. The speaker imagines it as almost alive, remembering its past. In calm summer weather, it seems to drift back to an earlier existence as a tree in some warm southern forest, where wind moved through branches above streams. But when a storm blows in and the waves turn white, the mast shudders back into its old restlessness. It trembles and shakes rose petals from its wood as if it still longs for the wild ocean that destroyed it. The mood is quiet and elegiac, but with a sharp undercurrent of restlessness. The poem mixes peaceful images of shore life with the memory of violence, suggesting that certain things never fully lose the pull of their former lives.
The Broken Mast — Summary
It lies alone upon a tide-swept shore, Above a crescent beach of silver sand, Flung high upon the rocks by some great hand Stretched from the dark, whose fingers clutched and tore The main-mast from the ship. Above it soar White gulls, and near in wild-rose tangle stand Old twisted pines, where song-birds of the land Mingle soft singing with the ocean's roar.
And through long summer days it dreams old dreams Of far-off southern forests, and the sighing Of wind-blown boughs above bird-haunted streams; But when the storm sets the white spindrift flying It thrills and trembles with the old unrest, And shakes the wild-rose petals from its breast.