I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
The first stanza begins with a third-person perspective telling of a man far out into the water that they could not hear him. The last two lines switch to the first-person speaker acknowledging the distance between them and the miscommunication. He has noticed that the crowd assumes that he is waving rather than asking for help. The stanza concludes by informing the reader there is a miscommunication that will not be resolved. The drowning man is accepting his fate since the people are too far out than they realize.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
The drowning man recognizes the failure of communication that has taken place but the crowd has already made their assumptions. Aware of the man’s character they deduced the situation according to their impression of him. They assume his larking in the water led to his death not realizing he was drowning all along. They will not understand his predicament because they have made a conclusion about his situation. The stanza alludes to how others are oblivious of one’s internal struggles and mental health due to misapprehension. Even after the individual is suffocated by their emotional turmoil and isolation others will not comprehend his struggles prior.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
The extended metaphor of the poem is the struggles of mental illness and the sense of isolation. Therefore, the drowning man is the victim of internal turmoil with a crowd misunderstanding his issues. In the relevant line, the man discredits the crowd’s conclusion that the cold was an isolated case since he has always felt ‘cold’. He has experienced loneliness and felt detached for a prolonged period before the drowning. The line highlights that his cry for help through his emotional turmoil was futile because of a failure in communication.
