Genevieve Taggard’s speaker is caught between a human lover and the pull of something larger. She asks to be left alone, not because she has stopped caring, but because her heart is pouring outward with the sea toward the moon’s impersonal majesty. Human affection feels irritating and demanding next to that vast, wordless presence. Her vow, she says, has already outlasted men’s love and even the lover’s; what she wants now is not a meeting but solitude.
The mood is restless and a little defiant, yet also tender. The sea and moonlight are not just scenery—they feel like companions she is almost unfaithful with. Her final plea to the sea itself, “Why will you follow me!” blurs the line between wanting to be alone and wanting to be pursued by something as constant and impersonal as the tide.