Imagination vs. Reality
The poem explores two very different environments—an island seashore and a busy London roadside. Importantly, these environments also differ because the former is imagined and the latter is real within the poem. In the first stanza, the “island man wakes up / to the sound of blue surf.” Vivid imagery of this “small emerald island” is continued through the second stanza. Until the shift in the third stanza, when the island imagery is replaced by that of traffic on a busy road, the reader is unaware that the island scene is in the man’s imagination. The final line confirms that the man’s actual location is London, England. The sound of the traffic outside transported him to the seaside, yet he couldn’t be further away from a sunny island. This half-asleep confusion establishes that the man is not from London, and instead is from an island where he used to wake up to the sound of ocean. Realizing where he is comes with a sense of resignation for the man. He “heaves” out of bed. The split between the imagined and real landscapes within the poem suggests that the man is only able to access memories of his homeland in the moments between wake and sleep—after getting out of bed, he is squarely living “another London day.”
Nature vs. Industry
In the first two stanzas, natural imagery fills the poem. The first image is of “blue surf” and the movement of the waves. “Wild seabirds” and “fisherman pushing out to sea” populate the island. This imagery is comforting to the island man, who imagines waves “breaking and wombing,” suggesting a primal sense of home. He “always comes back” to this island.
This luscious island imagery is interrupted in the third stanza, when the “sands” are replaced with a “grey metallic soar” and a “surge of wheels” that create a “dull north circular roar.” The blues and greens of the island have been replaced with a greyscale. While the island imagery was comforting to the man, this industrialized world seems to weigh heavily on him. His pillow is “crumpled” and he must “heave himself” out of bed to begin “another London day.”
Half asleep, the man heard traffic outside and immediately thought it was the sound of the ocean. This demonstrates that he has a deeper connection to the natural imagery than that of a large metropolis such as London, and that he is originally from an island like the one he imagines. In this way, the contrast between the natural imagery and the cityscape—and its concomitant effect on the man’s emotional state—represents his nostalgia and longing for his island home and discomfort in London.
Temporality: Daily Rhythms
The poem begins with the single word “Morning,” which foregrounds the importance of temporality within the poem. By not specifying a specific morning by the use of an article (e.g. “One morning” or “This morning”), Nichols implies there is an everydayness to the scene of the poem. The man likely wakes to the sound of traffic every morning (“always comes back”), which leads to a brief glimpse of his island, and then to the re-realization of where he actually is.
Other action verbs within the poem emphasize a sense of cyclical routine. The waves are “steady breaking and wombing” in an endless crash along the beach. The fishermen “pushing out to sea” likely do so every morning, and they will return to shore later. The “sun rising defiantly / from the east” happens every morning, just as it sets every evening. He “always comes back” to this scene, which expresses the habitualness of the events of the poem. The final line—“Another London day”—further emphasizes this sentiment, that this poem describes any and every day in the life of an island man.
