Summary
It’s a bright, warm day near the coast of Naples. The waves crash quickly off the shore, and the islands and mountains in the distance reflect the noontime sun. The light, salty air mists flower buds that have yet to open. The speaker takes in the scene; the soft sounds of the wind, the birds, the waves, and the city provide the background noise.
The speaker sees seaweed strewn across the bottom of the ocean’s shallows, and watches the waves toss against the sand. As he stands alone, the sound of the water’s “measured motion” resonates with him, comforting him more than human company could. After the waves remind the speaker of his despair, he lists the various comforts he lacks: hope, health, contentedness, fame, leisure, and love. It seems that every person he meets is fortunate enough to experience these things in their lives. The speaker, on the other hand, feels fated to suffer.
Analysis
In the first stanza, the speaker describes the vibrant landscape near the coast of Naples. It’s not hard to imagine how beautiful this scene must be, between the sights of the ocean, the snow-peaked mountain range in the distance, and the feeling of the warm, Mediterranean sun. However, the language he uses quickly establishes an emotional tension that carries through to the poem’s final lines. The waves’ urgent motion is at odds with the tranquil imagery of the islands and mountains, as well as the city’s soft background sounds. The speaker acknowledges the surrounding peace, but the water’s perilous motion attracts him, makes him look deeper into the waves.
By stanza two, we learn that the speaker’s state of mind is closer to the turbulent, “flashing” ocean than the delicate sights and sounds cradling the beach. “How sweet,” he exclaims, recognizing something of himself in the waves that can’t stay still, that crash continually against the shore. Even though the noontime sun shines brightly through their transparent depths, it does nothing to change them. Likewise, the speaker remains unaffected by the delights of the city, anchored in the midst of some internal storm. By listing the positive things he lacks in his life, the speaker further alienates himself from the surrounding world. He alludes to the happiness that some wise men have been able to find through solitude in meditation, but the speaker's visit to the beach only emphasizes his pain, instead of providing him with a safe space to find peace. He can connect with neither nature nor mankind, nor can he be with himself.
By heavily concentrating on the setting in the first two stanzas, Shelley establishes the natural world as a mirror for the speaker’s interior state. This is a common feature of Romantic literature: violent storms reflect profound sorrow, anger, or shock while bright spring days speak to unprecedented bliss and happiness. The landscape’s magnificence also evokes the sublime, or the overwhelming experience of finding oneself before a wonder beyond measure. The idea of the sublime, theorized by Edmund Burke in 1757, heavily influenced Romantic poetry, especially when the object in question originated in nature.
Shelley's use of the Spenserian stanza, where the final line of each stanza includes twelve syllables instead of ten, quite literally adds an extra stress to the speaker's confession of his emotional state. Recognizing a likeness between the water's turbulent waves and his own heart's feelings, the speaker emphasizes his longing for some connection between himself and the world around him to alleviate his despair.
