Ye are Gods, and behold, ye shall die, and the waves be upon you at last.Swinburne’s sea-imagery is significant in establishing a most basic argument against - and lament over - the rise of Christianity. Will ye take her to chain her with chains, who is older than all ye Gods ?Īll ye as a wind shall go by, as a fire shall ye pass and be past Will ye bridle the deep sea with reins, will ye chasten the high sea with rods ?
With travail of day after day, and with trouble of hour upon hour Īnd bitter as blood is the spray and the crests are as fangs that devour:Īnd its vapour and storm of its steam as the sighing of spirits to be Īnd its noise as the noise in a dream and its depth as the roots of the sea:Īnd the height of its heads as the height of the utmost stars of the air:Īnd the ends of the earth at the might thereof tremble, and time is made bare. With light of ruin, and sound of changes, and pulse of years: In its sides is the north-wind bound and its salt is of all men's tears In the hollow before it the thunder is taken and snared as a prey The depths stand naked in sunder behind it, the storms flee away Rolls, under the whitening wind of the future, the wave of the world. White-eyed and poisonous-finned, shark-toothed and serpentine-curled, Where, mighty with deepening sides, clad about with the seas as with wings,Īnd impelled of invisible tides, and fulfilled of unspeakable things,
Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death waits: Where beyond the extreme sea-wall, and between the remote sea-gates, This poem suggests that religion is doomed to constantly be shaped and re-shaped that it is easily washed away. Furthermore Swinburne uses anaphora and repetition to drive the poem through, to heighten the gravity of monotheism’s potential failure. The poem uses the image of the sea to explore both the shift to Christianity and its fate. Swinburne uses the structure of a dramatic monologue to lament the transition from Pagan polytheistic tradition to Christianity and then prophecy a future downfall of the Christian God.
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