Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The poem is narrated in the third person from an omniscient point of view, which describes the morning of an island man.
Form and Meter
free verse
Metaphors and Similes
In the fourth stanza, the man's "crumpled pillow waves" as the man gets out of bed. This could be interpreted as a farewell from or to the island. The "waves" could also be conjuring the movement of the ocean, which could represent the habitualness of this morning scene.
Alliteration and Assonance
There is alliteration of the "s" sound a few times throughout the poem. This is most obvious in the second stanza with "sun surfacing." In the first and third stanzas, there are several words that begin with "s" as well: "sound," "surf," "steady," "sands," "soar," and "surge." This repetition suggests the repetition within the events of the poem, which has an overall sense of habitualness.
Irony
Genre
Setting
The poem takes place on an imagined island and in the city of London, England.
Tone
Protagonist and Antagonist
Major Conflict
Climax
Foreshadowing
In the second stanza, the sun is described as "surfacing defiantly." This could foreshadow the man's realization that he is not hearing the ocean, but rather the traffic of London. The words "groggily groggily" are repeated and set off through spacing from the rest of the lines in the second stanza. Similarly, this shift in subject from the island scene to the man's internal state and the offset spacing foreshadows the disorientating realization that he is in London.
Understatement
Allusions
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Personification
In the second stanza, the sun is described to be rising "defiantly." This is a humanlike manner attributed to the sunrise, something that happens each morning in the same way. It suggests that the sunrise over the island is happening in the midst of opposition. This sense of opposition could be from the contrast between the man's imagined landscape versus the real one, geographically and/or culturally.
In the fourth stanza, the man's "crumpled pillow waves." Since pillows are inanimate objects, the movement in this line is metaphorical and an example of personification. The man could be likening the pillow to the ocean. On the other hand, the pillow could be seen as waving farewell to the man as he gets out of bed, as if the island scene were saying goodbye to him.
