"With Ships the Sea was Sprinkled Far and Nigh"

“With Ships the Sea was Sprinkled Far and Nigh” follows the traditional Petrarchan style with a volta occurring just after line eight. The extended metaphor comparing the ships to women illuminates the human condition to seek out and fixate on what we think is the “best” amongst a group.

The speaker takes a different approach, a more cryptic one, not only masking the woman he loves through comparison of the ship but also by comparing the ship to “stars in heaven.” He finds the ships, or the women around him beautiful and ethereal, but scattered. The horizon of the sea and the sky is already difficult to discern, but under the night sky the contrast fades completely. The sea meets the sky and the reflection the stars make on the sea furthers the blend. This is how the speaker sees the ships on the sea; while he can make out the different ships on the sea and discern the “fast” ones from the “veering up and down” but because the sea and the sky meet, and they are like “stars in heaven” he cannot individualize any of them. None stand out to him as extraordinary until the “goodly vessel” appears, coming from the “haven broad.” She, unlike the rest is given places of reference from where she came and where she is going. The rest are simply at dock in the harbor, their lives and stories unknown. The speaker emphasizes that she is from a “haven,” a sanctuary showing how special he finds her, like she has been sent from this ethereal place nearer to him. Unlike the other ships though, she “will brook no tarring” and will not remain stagnate in the harbor. Her life, at least in the speaker’s eyes, is richer and fuller than all other ships’ and although some of the other ships waver in the sea, she is truly the only one moving. It creates an image that amongst all the undulating waves and “star” like ships, she is the only the one he fixates on, to the point that the others fade into the background just as the sea fades into the sky. The speaker also gives her a destination: “due north.” She has purpose in life unlike the rest which remain in the harbor, and although the speaker realizes that she was “nought to me nor I to her” he cannot help but be astonished and mesmerized, desiring to “pursue” her, even if her passing was only momentary.