The Ocean
By Nathaniel Hawthorne

“The Ocean has its silent caves,
Deep, quiet, and alone;
Though there be fury on the waves,
Beneath them there is none.

The awful spirits of the deep
Hold their communion there;
And there are those for whom we weep,
The young, the bright, the fair.


Calmly the wearied seamen rest
Beneath their own blue sea.
The ocean solitudes are blest,
For there is purity.

The earth has guilt, the earth has care,
Unquiet are its graves;
But peaceful sleep is ever there,
Beneath the dark blue waves.”

Nathanial Hawthorn begins with the first stanza of the poem, “The Ocean has its silent caves, / Deep, quiet, and alone.” He is describing the “silent caves” of the ocean, emphasizing the vast emptiness of its waters. “Though there be fury on the waves, / Beneath them there is none,” is comparing the rough, wild, and wavy appearance of the ocean from above shore to the reality of peace and calm underneath. “The awful spirits of the deep / Hold their communion there,” is referring to the deep sea being the resting place of spirits or those who have passed away. “And there are those for whom we weep, / The young, the bright, the fair,” mentions that the dead we mourn didn’t deserve to pass away. They were bright, smart, and young, taken too soon. “Calmly the wearied seamen rest / Beneath their own blue sea,” describes how the sailors that have passed away rest peacefully in the ocean because it is where they consider home. “The ocean solitudes are blest, / For there is purity,” refers to those who rest alone in the sea. They get to be alone and have a unique experience of an afterlife in the calm tranquility of the deep ocean (in purity). “The earth has guilt, the earth has care, / Unquiet are its graves,” compares death on earth to death at sea. Where the ocean is peaceful, the earth is busy. There are always people passing away. We lay them to rest in graves full of others that are deceased. “But peaceful sleep is ever there, / Beneath the dark blue waves,” emphasizes the serene space and vastness of the deep sea. Those who pass on earth don’t get to rest as peacefully as in the depths of the empty ocean.

The theme of this poem is the tranquility of the deep sea.
Hawthorn capitalizes “Ocean” in the first line, giving the word much significance in reference to the rest of the poem. Hawthorn uses a lot of descriptive language to paint the central image of the deep ocean. He mentions its “silent caves” and describes it as “deep, quiet, and alone” in lines 1 and 2 to emphasize the vastness. He calls it the “blue sea” (line 10) and mentions its “dark blue waves” (line 16). In line 3, “Though there be fury on the waves, / Beneath them is none,” creates a distinct image of the rough waves above the ocean’s surface. In line 11, “The ocean solitudes are blest, / For there is purity,” portrays the pure peace of the deep resting place. Hawthorn uses “peaceful sleep” in line 15 as a metaphor for death. Hawthorn also uses assonance continuously throughout the poem. At the end of every other line, there are repeating vowel sounds that rhyme. For example, lines 1 and 3 end with “caves” and “waves”, and lines 2 and 4 end in “alone” and “none.”