Stevens, wrote during a time period when Christianity began to lose its appearance.  The poem’s footnote also states that Key West is an island where Stevens vacationed.  This conjures up images of sirens from Greek Mythology, maidens singing their sorrowful song on the shores of an island.  I disagree with the footnote’s synopsis that he is observing a woman walking down by the sea.  Also I’d be willing to disagree with Dr. C as she said it could represent the inadequacy of words.  The poem spoke to me, and I listened.

Our society is founded on the ideals of once great societies, mimicking their motions.  We look back in time, gazing back “theatrical distances (824).”  We treasure their left behind “bronze shadows (824).”  Ages become defined by their technology, and there is no doubt the Greek Age was the Bronze Age.  Perhaps we have moved into the godless age, as the once great philosopher echoed, “God is dead.”

There is no discernable rhyme pattern in this poem.  It’s iritic at best, indiscernible.  That isn’t to say that rhyming is nonexistent.  If we look at the third stanza it begins and ends with “sang (823-824).”  If we look to the fourth stanza, it possesses an irregular break.  This divide could be a break in the stanza.  The rhyme sc  And surely Heaven heme of the previous stanza can be seen with “sea” and “sea (824).”  This would now create the fifth stanza, starting and ending with “made (824).”  With this divide, the poem is now broken down into 7 stanzas.  This could mirror the &days of creation.

Mimicking the irregular line break, the poem assumes the role of watching a woman sing.  It could be infrared that this woman, is representative of mother earth…or even God.  Traditionally God is portrayed as a woman.  Holding onto this train of thought, “She was the single artificer of the world (824).”  Now this world could be the song she is singing being uttered, “word by word (823).”  Perhaps…  “In the Beginning there was the word… the word was God (John 1).”  As we look at the creation story of Genesis recall, “The Earth was a formless void (Genesis 1:2).”  This is illustrated in the poem, “The water never formed to mind or voice (823).”  God creates order out of the formless chaos.  Even the first line, “She sang beyond the genius of the sea (823).”  Echoes the first book of the Bible.  The archaic definition of genius is plural for genii.  Guardian.  Or better yet, Latin: “attendant spirit from one’s birth (New Oxford).” Genesis 1.6 states that God separated the, “waters from the waters.”  He separated the seas below from the seas above forming a dome.  The upper waters represent the sky, and the waters below the sea.  The opening stanza closes on the “veritable ocean (823).”  The origins of veritable can be defined as truth (New Oxford).  Although God is inhuman, he is a sea of truth.

Stanza two states that, “The sea was not a mask. No more than she.”  Perhaps, man was created in god’s likeness.  And that is a reference of our creation although this doesn’t take place until the 6^th day.  More on this later, more likely the seas above represent the creation of heaven.  Genesis 1.8 “God called the dome sky.”  Chaos must be tamed in the inharmonious melody.  “The song and water were not medleyed (823).”  Heaven is revealed to us as a shroud, “The ever-hooded, tragic- gestured sea Was merely a place by which she walked to sing (823).”   God sings praises of this promised land.  It has to be so much more than we were promised.  I’m reminded of Moby Dick, when one of the protagonists walks into a church and scrawled on the wall is a profound message; “If the dead go to heaven why do we mourn their loss?”  Albeit that was a generalization, but heaven is a “tragic-gestured sea.”  And surely God, must sing her song as she walks in her realm.    “Whose spirit is this?... It was that spirit we sought and knew That we should ask this often as she sang (823)?”  The read she note, that knew is past tense.  We knew her, but now we ask who is she?  Where is god?  The heretic asks… I ask.

Moving onto Stanza Four, She speaks of the “dark voice of the sea… the outer voice of the sky… (824).”  On day four God created the sun, the moons, and the stars declaring them to be: “ for signs and for seasons, and days and years (Genesis 1.14).”  Stanza 5 echoes this, “She measured to the hour its solitude (824).”  Time has dominated, it has become essential to our lives.  But perhaps there is so much more to it than this… God is lonely, she is not of this world.  Even though she is the sole, “artificer of the world.”  Remember she is not of this world.  We are her toys, her play things, her play things, her creation.  Stanza four closes on, “Of sky and sea (824).”

Genesis day five God creates the creatures of the sky and the sea: “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures and let the birds fly (Genesis 1.20)…”  Recall that there was never a world for her.  Except for the song that she sang.  The world she foraged.  Stanza six opens, with the name of a man.  It might be of interesting note to the reader that on day six god created man.  Also Stevens has claimed to created this man. “The singing has ended”… this might be a reference to the seventh day of rest.  The song is over (824).  Perhaps there is a certain symbolism here.  Man has turned his back from God, “We turned Toward town (824).”  Perhaps in this age of technology man has, “Mastered the night and portioned the sea (824).”

The poem closes on, “In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.”  A keen is an Irish song of mourning (New Oxford).  Perhaps the line between man and god was drawn a sad keening, a sad song sung.  Perhaps man has become a ghost of God.  The song has been sung, a mournful wail.  Have we lost our origins?  H