Apostrophe to the Ocean by Lord Byron

This except is best known for its first lines that start with the phrase “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods” and end with “I love not Man the less, but Nature more.” They are some of Byron’s most commonly quoted lines and a wonderful start to his apostrophe to the ocean. The poet addresses the ocean, its power, its creator, and its timelessness throughout the seven stanzas. 

Apostrophe to the Ocean
Lord Byron

CLXXVIII.There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,There is a rapture on the lonely shore,There is society where none intrudes,By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:I love not Man the less, but Nature more,From these our interviews, in which I stealFrom all I may be, or have been before,To mingle with the Universe, and feelWhat I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

CLXXIX.Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;Man marks the earth with ruin—his controlStops with the shore;—upon the watery plainThe wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remainA shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,When for a moment, like a drop of rain,He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

CLXXX.His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fieldsAre not a spoil for him,—thou dost ariseAnd shake him from thee; the vile strength he wieldsFor earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,And send’st him, shivering in thy playful sprayAnd howling, to his gods, where haply liesHis petty hope in some near port or bay,And dashest him again to earth:—there let him lay.

CLXXXI.The armaments which thunderstrike the wallsOf rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,And monarchs tremble in their capitals.The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs makeTheir clay creator the vain title takeOf lord of thee, and arbiter of war;These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,They melt into thy yeast of waves, which marAlike the Armada’s pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

CLXXXII.Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?Thy waters washed them power while they were freeAnd many a tyrant since: their shores obeyThe stranger, slave, or savage; their decayHas dried up realms to deserts: not so thou,Unchangeable save to thy wild waves’ play—Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow—Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

CLXXXIII.Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s formGlasses itself in tempests; in all time,Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm,Icing the pole, or in the torrid climeDark-heaving;—boundless, endless, and sublime—The image of Eternity—the throneOf the Invisible; even from out thy slimeThe monsters of the deep are made; each zoneObeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

CLXXXIV.And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joyOf youthful sports was on thy breast to beBorne like thy bubbles, onward: from a boyI wantoned with thy breakers—they to meWere a delight; and if the freshening seaMade them a terror—'twas a pleasing fear,For I was as it were a child of thee,And trusted to thy billows far and near,And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here.

Summary 

‘Apostrophe to the Ocean’ by Lord Byron is a beautiful part of ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ that addresses the ocean and its unimaginable power. 

The poem takes readers through the terrifying and beautiful elements of the ocean while always returning to a depiction of it as dangerous and impossible to control. The poet writes that many men throughout time have made futile attempts to tame the ocean. Entire fleets and armadas have sailed across its surface. Destroying these supposedly strong and powerful ships is nothing more than a game to the ocean. Its never-changing form outlasts the strongest cities and nations. 

Everything built on the shore falls to pieces as time progresses, but not the ocean. Its face remains unwrinkled. The poem ends with the speaker including some personal details in his depiction of the ocean. He compares it to a horse that one might ride and has to trust with their life.

Structure and Form 

‘Apostrophe to the Ocean’ by Lord Byron is a seven-stanza section of the poet’s longer ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.’ This long poem is divided into numbered stanzas (as seen below) that use Roman numerals. Often, Byron’s stanzas are referenced by these numerals, so it’s important to include them as part of the analysis. 

‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ is divided into four cantos, or the poetic version of chapters, that are written in Spenserian stanzas. This means that in each stanza (including those below), readers can find eight lines written in iambic pentameter and a final line that’s structured as an Alexandrine. This means that the ninth line of every stanza has twelve iambic syllables. The poet also chose to use a pattern of ABABBCDCC throughout this poem. 

Literary Devices 

In this excerpt, the poet makes use of a few literary devices. These include: 

• Personification: can be seen when the poet writes about the ocean’s “breast” and depicts it with human emotions. 
• Metaphor: the final metaphor of the poem compares the ocean to a horse that one might ride on the back of. 
• Imagery: examples of imagery are seen when the poet describes something with particularly interesting and evocative language that should trigger the reader’s senses. For example, “sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, / Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.”
• Anaphora: seen when the poet repeats “There is” in the first three lines of the excerpt.
• Apostrophe: this entire poem is an apostrophe or an address to something or someone that cannot hear or understand the speaker. In this case, the poet’s speaker is talking to the ocean as though it can understand what he’s saying. 

Detailed Analysis 

Stanza One (or CLXXVIII)

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society where none intrudes,

By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

I love not Man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

The first lines of this section of ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’ are some of the poet’s best-known. He writes of the “pathless woods,” “lonely shore,” and his love for nature. The celebration of nature’s beauty and power is a theme found throughout Byron’s work (and the work of others from this period). 

The poet opens this section by speaking of all the pleasures that can be taken from nature and how his love for the natural world does not decrease his love of humankind. The two things exist at the same time. 

The poet’s speaker emphasizes the fact that when he spends time in nature, he feels as though he’s mingled with the Universe or merged with the world and all its complex pieces. He’s hoping to convey this connection to the reader and inspire them to consider nature in the same way. It’s hard for him to express the way that these experiences make him feel, he continues on to say, but he also has a hard time “conceal[ing]” or hiding his feelings. These two facts of his experience are what drive the following lines. 

Stanza Two (or CLXXIX)

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin—his control

Stops with the shore;—upon the watery plain

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain

A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,

When for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,

Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

The poet goes on, beginning his apostrophe, or address, to the ocean. He’s talking to the world’s oceans as though they can hear and understand him. This comes with many examples of personification in the next lines. 

He tells the ocean to “roll on” or to continue behaving in the way it is now. He admires the ocean’s power, despite the fact that it is incredibly dangerous. The speaker knows that “Ten thousand fleets sweep over” the ocean in “vain” or without success. The ocean is capable of incredible destruction; he’s implying that no creation of humanity can tame it. This beautiful, sublime power is something he admires. It’s a force found nowhere else on earth and should therefore be acknowledged.

While humankind “marks” the earth with its presence, bringing destruction in its wake, it can do nothing to the ocean, he adds. The ocean has a power that’s beyond humanity to control. 

When the ocean takes a life, the poet adds, the person it adds to its depths is nothing more than a drop of rain. This is the poet’s way of reminding the reader of how vast and unconquerable the ocean is, especially compared to the small lives of human beings.

The single human life the poet alludes to in these lines serves as a symbol for the purposeless advances on the sea that humanity has made throughout its history. Death is the fate of all who seek to control or conquer the ocean. Each life will sink, “unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown,” to the bottom of the sea where they will never be seen again. The ocean has the ability to remove someone from history without a trace left behind. 

Stanza Three (or CLXXX)

His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fields

Are not a spoil for him,—thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray

And howling, to his gods, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth:—there let him lay.

The next stanza emphasizes the way the ocean is different than the shore. Humankind cannot walk along paths, taking spoils and building upon the ocean. The ocean shakes humankind from its surface in an effort to destroy the “vile strength” humanity is capable of wielding over the earth. The ocean, the poet seems to be saying, is the only part of the earth that can truly defend itself. The ocean revenges the rest of the planet as humankind advances upon it. 

The poet writes that the ocean has “playful spray.” This is an important example of juxtaposition. The author is hoping to show how, with a simple playful gesture, the ocean is capable of destroying a man’s life (or many men’s lives). It barely exerts any effort and is capable of great destruction.

The final lines of this stanza describe the dying man’s “hope in some near port or bay” and how, because of the ocean’s immense strength, the man has no chance of returning there. The ocean “dashes” the man’s body and his hopes on the sea floor. There is no sense in even resisting.

Stanza Four (or CLXXXI)

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls

Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,

And monarchs tremble in their capitals.

The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make

Their clay creator the vain title take

Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,

They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar

Alike the Armada’s pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

The following stanza is slightly more complicated than those which came before it. The poet writes that the world’s strongest men, buildings, and creations are all “toys” to the ocean. It can rise up and destroy the capitals of monarchs, “rock-built cities,” and much more. By describing the ocean’s strength in this way, the poet expresses his appreciation for its immense control over human life.

The purpose of these specific references is to, again, remind readers of the ocean’s power. It can destroy the best buildings created by the most powerful rulers. Castles and monuments are nothing more than playthings to the ocean. 

It’s capable of overcoming and melting the cities of humanity in the same way that the ocean melts a single snowflake that falls to its surface. This is a wonderful metaphor that’s incredibly effective and helpful in the poet’s attempt to celebrate the sea’s strength. 

There is a specific allusion at the end of this stanza to the Battle of Trafalgar, an 1805 naval battle. It occurred between the British Royal Navy and the Spanish and French fleets. The poet is hoping to show how important the ocean is in these critical naval battles and in the success or failure of nations. It can destroy the “pride” of the Armada or the perceived strength of a fleet of ships. It is a far more impressive enemy than any nation.

Stanza Five (or CLXXXII)

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—

Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?

Thy waters washed them power while they were free

And many a tyrant since: their shores obey

The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay

Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou,

Unchangeable save to thy wild waves’ play—

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow—

Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

The fifth stanza describes the ocean’s shores and how throughout time, various nations have built their cities near the sea. These nations include “Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage,” all of which are gone. “What are they?” the poet asks. They are nothing, he is trying to imply, compared to the ocean. These supposedly strong and important cities and nations are wiped from the earth, and the ocean remains as strong as ever. 

The shore, or land (which is far weaker than the ocean), can be controlled by anyone, from slave to stranger. But, “not so thou,” the poet says. The ocean is different and unchangeable (at least by the hand of humanity). Time does nothing to the ocean; there are no wrinkles on its surface as one might find on the face of a human being. The ocean is the same now as it was at the dawn of creation, he adds. 

Stanza Six (or CLXXXIII)

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm,

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving;—boundless, endless, and sublime—

The image of Eternity—the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone

Obeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

The poet brings in a new element in this stanza—divine power or God. The poet writes that the ocean is a direct creation of God and that it is also a “glorious mirror” where God can look down and see himself in the tempest. The ocean is, the poet adds, the image of Eternity (the capitalized “E” here suggests God again). 

Throughout all time, all difficulty, all climates and weather patterns, the ocean is there “boundless, endless, and sublime.” The list of adjectives in this stanza is a literary device known as accumulation. By listing them out this way, one after another, the poet hopes to make the lines even more effective. 

Every part of the ocean, he goes on to say, is part of God’s creation, even the “monsters of the deep.” The poet also references the many zones of the ocean from the surface to the ocean floor. This is meant to add detail to the reader’s image of the ocean and also emphasize how vast it is. It contains things that are both beautiful and terrible.

Stanza Seven (or CLXXXIV)

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

Borne like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy

I wantoned with thy breakers—they to me

Were a delight; and if the freshening sea

Made them a terror—’twas a pleasing fear,

For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here.

The final stanza of this excerpt addresses the ocean directly once more. This time, though, the poet’s speaker adds in personal details of his relationship to the ocean. He adds that throughout his youth, he enjoyed ocean-related sports, like sailing. He spent time on the ocean’s surface, marveling at its vastness. 

He uses an example of personification in these lines, referring to the ocean’s surface as its “breast,” or chest. He felt close to the ocean as he wondered at its vastness and possibility. Everything about it was a “delight,” and even when he noted how terrifying the ocean could be, it was still a “pleasing fear.” 

This is a feeling or experience in art and poetry that is known as the sublime. It’s a feeling of amazement and wonders at something dangerous, as experienced from a distance (for example, watching a volcano erupt from a safe distance or admiring the ocean’s waves crashing on the shore from land). 

The excerpt ends with a metaphor comparing the ocean to a horse that the poet’s speaker trusted with his life. He rode on the ocean’s surface as one might ride on the back of a horse. It took some trust that the metaphorical horse was not going to harm him or do something dangerous, and that was an experience that the speaker enjoyed. 

The poet ends with the conclusion that although the ocean is incredibly powerful, it is also a source of enjoyment and wonder. 

FAQs 

Similar Poetry 

Readers who enjoyed this poem should also consider reading some other Lord Byron poems. For example: 

• ‘Epitaph to a Dog’ – a unique poem that was written after the poet’s dog Boatswain died of rabies.
• ‘Fare Thee Well’ –  a fifteen stanza poem written by Byron after separating from his wife in the early 1800s.
• ‘Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed From a Skull’ – a thoughtful poem about death that represents some of the best of Byron’s verse.