The title suggests a royal figure of the sea, and the poem holds that image in a dreamlike light. Her terrace is sand, with palms and twilight around her, so the shore becomes a kind of court. Small motions of her wrist are not just gestures; they seem to express whole thoughts. Her plumes ruffle and turn into sails, and the movement of her fan becomes a way of roaming, as if she were both a woman and a vessel moving through the evening. She doesn’t just observe the sea and the fading light—she partakes of them, letting them flow around her and settle into a quiet, subsiding sound. The mood is hushed, elegant, and slightly unreal, as though a person, a palace, and the sea have all dissolved into one slow, graceful movement.
Infanta Marina — Summary
Her terrace was the sand And the palms and the twilight.
She made of the motions of her wrist The grandiose gestures Of her thought.
The rumpling of the plumes Of this creature of the evening Came to be sleights of sails Over the sea.
And thus she roamed In the roamings of her fan,
Partaking of the sea, And of the evening, As they flowed around And uttered their subsiding sound.