"Once by the Pacific:" From Creation to Extinction in Fourteen Lines

Sarah McVicar


       Robert Frost's sonnet "Once by the Pacific" initially appears to be a nature poem narrated by someone watching an ocean storm approaching the shore. The narrator describes the "shattered water" and great waves (line 1). However, by the end of the first quatrain, the possibility of some more unusual event is introduced. In the middle section of the poem the narrator foresees a night of dark intent, and "not only a night, an age" (line 11). By the final couplet the mysterious threat is explained, as we discover the poem is describing not just the coming of an ocean storm, but of the end of time and of the world itself. Frost employs the poetic elements of rhythm, rhyme, diction, tone, imagery, allusion, and symbolism to convey this disturbing vision.
       "Once by the Pacific" uses many elements of the traditional sonnet form, and the ways in which it deviates from this form are used to reinforce the poem's meaning. Sonnets are short, intense and emotional poems. All these qualities suit the poem's dark undertone and impact. Frost's poem, like most sonnets, has fourteen lines. Traditional sonnets, though written in a single stanza, are organized in several distinct sections: three four-line sections and a final couplet (4-4-4-2) or an eight-line section and a six-line section (8-6). "Once by the Pacific" is not organized in either way. It appears to be a 4-4-4-2, but the middle two sections are combined, resulting in a 4-8-2 structure. In this way, the poem breaks out of traditional sonnet form, reflecting the way the motion and force it describes cannot be confined.
       The first four lines introduce Frost's simple but powerful style of writing. They use an aabb rhyme scheme, not usually seen in sonnets. These couplets create a sense of regularity and security, mirroring the rhythmic quality of ocean waves. Like most sonnets the poem is written in iambic pentameter, so natural to English speech. The language is not particularly "poetic." This direct approach contributes to the poem's force. Though seemingly simple, the language's strength makes a strong impact. Frost begins with the powerful image of "shattered water,” quickly introducing force and violence. The water makes a "misty din" (line 1). Frost uses synesthesia to give the waves the power of sight and thought. The waves, the narrator says, are thinking of doing something "that water never did to land before" (line 4). The reader is given a hint that an unprecedented event is going to take place.
       The sense of a mysterious threat is deepened in the next eight lines. The language creates a dark and ominous feeling. The clouds are "low and hairy in the skies" (line 5). They seem to be moving closer to the ocean below. Frost describes "locks” blown into "the gleam of eyes" (line 6). Frosts uses personification to create the image of a face. Lines seven and eight transcend the reliable couplet structure: "You could not tell, and yet it looked as if/ The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff." This carries the reader forward, breaking the normal structure of the poem: "The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff, / The cliff in being backed by continent ( lines 9 and 10). Something very powerful must be coming; something that even a great cliff must be protected from. The speaker says, "Someone had better be prepared for rage" (line 12). The word "someone" stands out because it does not fit the iambic rhythm. The reader is left to wonder who the "someone" is. The word "rage" suggests anger, but it also suggests movement with great violence or intensity... to spread or prevail forcefully. Whatever it is that is coming is going to come with great force.
       Often the very last couplet of a sonnet summarizes or reaches a surprising conclusion, and this last couplet does both those things: explaining the mystery that has been presented and at the same time surprising us with its enormity. The speaker says "more than ocean-water [would be] broken" (line 13). This line recalls the image of the shattered water in the first line, only this time it is more than water shattered. The lines in this ominous couplet have an extra syllable, emphasizing the couplet's importance. More than ocean-water would be broken "before God's last Put out the Light was spoken" (line 14). This image of God speaking also reminds the reader of the first line, which contains the only other description of sound, the "misty din." The beginning and end of the poem portray the beginning and end of the earth. In Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible, when the earth was created God divided the water and raised up the earth. This is suggested by the shattering of water in the first line. During the creation God said "Let there be light." In the final line of the poem that light is being "put out." The extinguishing of the light is symbolic of the end of the world. The discrepancy between the poetic "Let there be light" and the abruptness of "Put out the light" serves to remind the reader of the contrast between the glory of the earth's creation and the sudden and destructive quality of its end.
       However, in this final destruction there is also the image of birth: for centuries English speakers have said of a pregnant woman that when her water has broken the birth is about to take place. This alludes to the rebirth of people at the end of the world as described in the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Christian Bible. In the final couplet the great mystery of the poem is revealed. In a way, it is also resolved, as the earth's final moments are both of destruction and rebirth. In just fourteen lines Frost has spanned all of time, from the creation of the earth to its extinction. The appearance of simplicity in the poem created by Frost's use of language is belied by the force and strength that dominate its images.