'Twas when the seas were roaring With hollow blasts of wind, A damsel lay deploring, All on a rock reclined.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- A woman mourns alone during a stormy sea scene.
- In plain terms
- A sad girl sits on a rock while the wind and waves rage.
- What can you take from it?
- Grief can feel isolating even amidst nature's power.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Why does sorrow often feel alone?
- How does nature reflect emotion?
Another view
It romanticizes suffering without offering resolution.
More from John Gay
My lodging is on the cold ground, And hard, very hard, is my fare, But that which grieves me more Is the coldness of my dear.
Permalink to quote #2 No retreat. No retreat. They must conquer or die who've no retreat.
Permalink to quote #3 Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; and now I know it.
Permalink to quote #4
Related quotes
The grief of the keen is no personal complaint for the death of one woman over eighty years, but seems to contain the whole passionate rage that lurks somewher…
John Millington SyngeJohn Millington Synge quote #13 He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watche…
Alfred (Lord) TennysonAlfred (Lord) Tennyson quote #25 We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or an old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk up…
Wallace StevensWallace Stevens quote #47