A speaker stands at the water’s edge, letting small yellow stones slip through his fingers and throwing them into the waves. The sea accepts them and throws back countless others, yellow and white, as the tide retreats. Watching them settle on the sand, he suddenly sees them differently: they look like bones left on a silent shore. That final image shifts the whole mood. What begins as an idle, almost childlike game becomes a quiet meditation on time and death. The speaker feels small before the sea’s endless repetition, and the stones—worn smooth and pale—become reminders of what remains after life has gone. The poem is calm but eerie, full of the sound of waves and the hush of a shore that stretches toward some far, unseen ocean.
Stones — Summary
Small yellow stones That, lifted, through my idle fingers fall Leaving a score-- And these I toss between the parted lips Of the lapping sea, And the sea tosses again with millions more-- Yellow and white stones; Then drawing back her snaky long waves all, Leaves the stones Yellow and white upon the sandy shore.... As they were bones Yellow and white left on the silent shore Of an unfoaming far unvisioned Sea.