“APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN” BY LORD

BYRONAustin Martin

Stanza 2

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. 

Stanza 5

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee -   Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?   Thy waters wasted them 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.

Stanza 2 Explained

Rhyme Scheme – ABABBCBCCThe author speaks of the ocean rolling on,

or flowing in reference to the waves. Ships may sail on top of the water, but

nothing can be done to the ocean. Man symbolizes ruin and destroys the

world, but mans control cannot go farther than the shore, leaving the ocean untouched.

All the shipwrecks are part of the oceans will, but a shadow of what mans destructions are.

Continued

Like a drop of rain, a man could fall into the depths of the ocean with a bubbly groan and become lost, without a coffin or grave.

Byron is speaking to the ocean telling how powerful, vast, and unchanging it is.

Stanza 5 Explained

The author compares the oceans shores to empires, and lists many other empires that have been “powerful” and asks “what are they?”

He tells that the empires answer to everything – slaves, stranger, and savage, but the ocean answers to nobody.

The empires downfall has dried up many realms into deserts, but the ocean has done no such thing.

Continued

The ocean is unchangeable with its wild waves playing endlessly, times has no affect on it unlike the many empires.

Just like when first created, the ocean still rolls the same.

Rhyme Scheme – ABABBCBCC The author is speaking about how the

ocean is more powerful than man and does not change unlike man

Works Cited

http://216.101.58.17/hs/jcrossley/new_page_6.htm