The poet Walt Whitman, uses the sea as a metaphor for immortality in a cluster of nine poems which are part of his 1881 Leaves of Grass. In context he uses a ship as a metaphor for man’s passage through life beginning with birth and ending with death. Similarly, in the “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” and “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life” poems, the he-bird that has lost his companion the she-bird to death, is personified as the boy-poet who must learn about love and death in order to mature. The he-bird’s mournful song to his beloved is meant to translate the message of loss of love the boy-poet will endure in his maturation. Here the he-bird asks the sea to be silent so that he can hear the voice of the she-bird respond to him. The unresponsiveness of the sea infers that the boy is in the process of learning about the finality of death. A lesson of life he must learn, in order to mature as the poet wishes him to.

Henry David Thoreau’s work is also proficient in the use of metaphors. With a natural inclination for the sea Thoreau maintained his existence on land near the shores of Nantucket and Cape Cod. However, Thoreau used the sea as a metaphor for the enrichment of man’s mind and the limitlessness of his abilities. As we can see in this line, “Thoreau’s unquenchable vitalism was stimulated ever anew by the heroic qualities of contemporary seafaring men, whose acts stirred his faith in the possibilities of achieving and expressing inner qualities of life possible in an ever new world”  Harp on the Shore, Thoreau and the Sea, by William Bonner (10)

Another significance in the use of the sea as a metaphor for the voyage through personal growth, like we saw with Whitman, is the insight that it provides the reader about the writer. It is well known that Thoreau wrote Walden Pond while confined to a small cabin in the woods isolated from civilization as he knew it. The purpose of this experiment was to free his mind from the confines he felt Western civilization had placed upon him, and to slow the pace of his existence to a level in which he could enjoy and inhale the luxuries of his natural surrounding.  Walden Pond was the journal he kept of this experience. This text left the reader with the impression that Thoreau as a “retirement-loving man of the fields and woods and streams.” When in reality Thoreau believed that the very fluid motion of life was imperative to personal growth, and that the very constant flowing toward new life was essential to maturation and evolution of the psyche. Hence his use of the sea as a metaphor in this context is appropriate as well as visually stimulating.

The two oceans that are a common theme in Thoreau’s work is the ocean which is found on earth and the ocean in the sky which consists of the moon, stars and air. Conceptually, to Thoreau both oceans represented the accessible vastness of the human psyche which man should aspire to engage until he dies.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Drop in a Bucket
by Daisey Gonzalez

When I think of the lands just beyond the horizon,
as I stroll along the sandy beach,
lands not seen, people not met, culture not known, foods not tasted
I ponder my innocence and youth
My ineffectualness
The ocean’s vast and massive appearance
squashes my illusioned significance
since that which I am a product of, is valueless at sea
And to it, I am no more than a glassy pebble or grain of sand
 

The Fearless Ones
by Daisey Gonzalez

None of us belong on land
We all long for the sea
We are born in the sea
Those who are true to themselves can’t conform
they are the fearless ones
Through them we see we can reject the impurity and rottenness
So we write about them, Odysseus,
we idolize them, Ishmael
we are fascinated by them, Jacque Cousteau
The conquerors of the sea
We are like them, naturally you know
But we are not fearless because we hesitate….

We are the faithless, frightened ones
The fearless ones turn to the sea for safe passage
They thrive on the fury of the elements since it is so refreshingly pure
At sea you do not fear death, so you live forever