In “Sea Longing,” Sara Teasdale gives voice to someone trapped far from the coast, in a place so hot that even the wall seems steeped in sun. In imagination, the speaker feels and hears cool waves creeping over sand, the tide ebbing with its long, musical murmur, and foam blowing around rocks like snow. These remembered or imagined sensations make the inland heat and dryness harder to bear. The speaker says she was born the sea’s eternal thrall—bound to it, longing for it. In the closing lines, that longing becomes a wish for complete surrender: to let the cold tide roll over her, quench the burning thing men call the soul, and then drift out with the ebb, becoming insignificant—less than a shell on the shoal or the sea-gulls calling to the sea. The mood is wistful, almost mournful, but also strangely calm, because the sea promises coolness, rest, and release from the self.
Sea Longing — Summary
A THOUSAND miles beyond this sun-steeped wall Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand, The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land With the old murmur, long and musical; The windy waves mount up and curve and fall, And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,-- Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know, For I was born the sea's eternal thrall. I would that I were there and over me The cold insistence of the tide would roll, Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,-- Then with the ebbing I should drift and be Less than the smallest shell along the shoal, Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.