Emily Dickinson

By the Sea

BY THE SEA.
I STARTED early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;

Mermaids in basement

Dickinson's house metaphor: the ocean floor is the basement, the surface is the upper floor. She's turning the sea into domestic architecture.

The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me,
And frigates in the upper floor
Extended hempen hands,

Hempen hands

Hemp = rope. The ships' rigging extends toward her like hands reaching to rescue a drowning mouse. She's imagining how she looks from their perspective.

Presuming me to be a mouse
Aground, upon the sands.

No man moved me

First use of masculine pronouns for the sea. Watch how the tide shifts from 'it' to 'he' as it becomes threatening—personification with a sexual edge.

But no man moved me till the tide
Went past my simple shoe,
And past my apron and my belt,
And past my bodice too,
And made as he would eat me up
As wholly as a dew

Eat me up / as dew

Reversal: dew doesn't eat dandelions, it evaporates off them. The sea would consume her as completely as morning sun consumes dew—total erasure.

Upon a dandelion's sleeve—
And then I started too.
And he—he followed close behind;

Silver heel

The water is at her ankles, filling her shoes. 'Heel' suggests the sea is a pursuer stepping on her heels, chasing her up the beach.

I felt his silver heel
Upon my ankle,—then my shoes
Would overflow with pearl.
Until we met the solid town,
No man he seemed to know;
And bowing with a mighty look
At me, the sea withdrew.

The sea withdrew

He bows and retreats at the town's edge—civilization is the boundary where the sea's power ends. The gentleman-predator knows his limits.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Sea as Predatory Gentleman

This poem enacts a chase scene with sexual menace underneath. Dickinson starts with innocent tourism—"I started early, took my dog"—but the sea quickly becomes "he," a masculine pursuer who follows her up the beach. The pronouns do crucial work: the tide is "it" until line 9, then suddenly "no man moved me till the tide" introduces the masculine, and by line 13 the sea is fully "he" who "would eat me up."

The eating metaphor has predatory and erotic dimensions. The tide moves past her shoe, apron, belt, and bodice—a progressive undressing as water rises up her body. The comparison to dew on a dandelion is deceptively gentle: dew doesn't consume the plant, it evaporates. The sea would make her disappear as completely as dew vanishes in morning sun.

The chase reverses at "then I started too"—she runs, he pursues, his "silver heel" at her ankles. Her shoes "overflow with pearl"—seawater filling them, but also suggesting tears or something precious extracted under pressure. The sea only stops at "the solid town," where civilization marks his territory's edge. He "bows with a mighty look" like a gentleman caller who's been refused at the door, then withdraws. The poem ends with her safe but the threat unresolved—he's still there, waiting at the boundary.

Dickinson's Domestic Ocean

Dickinson rarely left Amherst and never saw the ocean, which makes this poem's confidence remarkable. She domesticates the sea through house metaphors: mermaids live in the basement, frigates occupy the upper floor. This isn't ignorance—it's strategy. By making the ocean into architecture she can understand, she controls it on the page even as the poem enacts losing control to it.

The mouse image is self-deprecating but specific. To the ships, she's a small creature "aground, upon the sands"—out of her element, vulnerable, worth rescuing. Dickinson often used small animal metaphors (mouse, wren, daisy) for the female speaker, playing with how women were seen as diminutive and helpless.

Watch the "hempen hands" detail: hemp makes rope, so ship rigging becomes hands reaching toward her. This is Dickinson's typical method—take a technical detail (ships have rope) and animate it through metaphor (rope becomes hands). The precision matters. She doesn't say "the ships reached out"—she specifies the material (hempen) and lets you figure out that ropes are reaching.