Poems about beaches take their inspiration from the great outdoors. Specifically, ocean scenes are usually highly relatable to readers from various backgrounds.
There are many different poems about beaches, but most describe the natural world in joyful language. Poets usually use image-rich words to depict the texture of the sand, the roaring sound of the waves, brilliant blue skies, soft white clouds, and perhaps even a horizon dotted with ships.
While most beach poems describe the shoreline in a lighthearted and peaceful way, not every poem takes such a positive tone. There are others, such as poems by Walt Whitman or those dating from WWI, that use the beach as a metaphor for much darker events, like death and loss. It’s a place where two worlds meet–the ocean and the land, and therefore lends itself to depictions of loved ones crossing into the afterlife or powerful transitions or changes in one’s personal life.
‘On the Beach at Night Alone’ by Walt Whitman is a powerful poem. In it, Whitman discusses how everything that has ever existed or will ever exist is connected.
A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
‘The Beach’ by Robert Graves is a poem about the contrast between childhood innocence and an adult mindset. The poem depicts this dichotomy by demonstrating the difference between how a boatman and a group of children interact with the ocean.
Louder than gulls the little children scream
Whom fathers haul into the jovial foam;
But others fearlessly rush in, breast high,
Laughing the salty water from their mouthes—
‘Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea’ by Sylvia Plath explores imagination. Reality, the speaker realizes, doesn’t always live up to what one imagined.
Cold and final, the imagination Shuts down its fabled summer house; Blue views are boarded up; our sweet vacation Dwindles in the hour-glass.
‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold is dramatic monologue lamenting the loss of true Christian faith in England during the mid 1800s.
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
‘My Garden — like the Beach’ by Emily Dickinson is a beautiful, short poem. It compares the speaker’s garden to the beach and the summer to the sea. Read the full poem, with a complete analysis.
My Garden—like the Beach—
Denotes there be—a Sea—
That's Summer—
‘Show It At the Beach’ by Shel Silverstein addresses taboos in contemporary society. Specifically, the poem considers when nudity is appropriate and when it isn’t (on the beach).
Oh, they won't let us show it at the beach.
No, they won't let us show it at the beach.
They think we're gonna grab it if it gets within our reach.
And they won't let us show it at the beach.
‘Facing West From California’s Shores’ by Walt Whitman is a unique poem that alludes to the state of California and the potential expansion of the United States.
Facing west, from California's shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the
land of migrations, look afar,
‘I Saw From the Beach’ by Thomas Moore is a thoughtful poem. It considers the soul and passion and how the two things change over time as one ages.
I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining,
A bark o’er the waters move gloriously on;
I came when the sun o’er that beach was declining,
The bark was still there, but the waters were gone.
‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ is a narrative poem by Lewis Carroll. It was included in his 1871 novel ‘Through the Looking-Glass.’
The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might;
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright—
‘Beach Burial’ by Kenneth Slessor is a deeply emotional poem about the cost of war. It uses hard-to-forget images of bodies washing up on a beach to highlight this fact.
Softly and humbly to the Gulf of Arabs
The convoys of dead sailors come;
At night they sway and wander in the waters far under,
But morning rolls them in the foam.
‘Lampfall’ by Derek Walcott dives deep into an investigation of thought, dreaming, community and connection while also implying that nature and thought are more meaningful than development.
Closest at lampfall
Like children, like the moth-flame metaphor,
The Coleman's humming jet at the sea's edge
‘On the Beach at Fontana’ by James Joyce is a poem about paternal love and protectiveness. Read the poem with, a summary and complete analysis.
Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pier-stakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slime-silvered stone.
‘California Dreaming’ by Charles Wright, written in 1983, is a poem about Wright’s departure from Laguna Beach, CA, where he lived for six years. In ‘California Dreaming,’ the poet-speaker describes how Californians are similar to another evolution of people from the East.
We are not born yet, and everything’s crystal under our feet.
We are not brethren, we are not underlings.
We are another nation,
Jean Bleakney’s ‘Consolidation’ is a deeply personal poem about the act of rearranging the cowry shells that the speaker and her children gathered in the past.
Some sunny, empty afternoon
I’ll pool our decade’s worth
and more of cowrie shells
gathered from that gravel patch
‘A Former Life’ by Charles Baudelaire speaks on a the poet’s own imagination and how his creative works are born there and are at his beck and call.
‘Clocks’ by Gillian Clarke is a unique and deep poem that reflects the passage of time and the wonders of growing older.
‘Drifting Flowers of the Sea’ by Sadakichi Hartmann describes the presence of white flowers and their relation to perseverance and unspoken dreams.
Derek Walcott’s poem ‘Ebb’ is about a car journey by the shore and comments on aging, industrialization, and the past.
‘Homecoming: Anse La Raye’ by Derek Walcott is a complex and interesting poem about when a homecoming doesn’t feel like coming home. It is rich with allusions and connections to Walcott’s real-life experience.
‘The Phantom Horsewoman’ by Thomas Hardy describes a man plagued by a reoccurring vision of a lost “horsewoman” throughout every moment of his life.
‘The Widening Sky’ by Edward Hirsch describes a speaker’s emotionally revelatory journey into a darkening seaside landscape.
‘There was an Indian’ by J.C. Squire describes the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the new world and the reaction of one Native American man.
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