Introduction of the Poem:
The poetess here recalls her experience of having sex with one of her lovers. He went away after making love to her but she could not forget the delicious experience and its bitter - sweet memory continued to haunt her.
Critical Summary:
One day the poet felt as if a man's fist was alternately tightening and then loosening its muscles. It appeared as if he were forming some firm resolve and then becoming somewhat uncertain. She was tortured by her memory of lovemaking with one of her lovers . She knew that he would not come back, but she was unable to forget the experience of making love to him because it had been enjoyable.
Standing on the seashore, the poet felt that the sea was inviting her to jump in its waters so that she could end her life. The sea seemed to tell her that she would lose nothing except her distress and misery, but it would certainly gain something by swallowing her body and adding to its conquests. The poet, however, asked the sea to mind its own business and to go its way, leaving her to go her way.
She recalled how her lover would come to her during his office breaks to make love to her. He used to come to her to refresh himself after his tiring office - work; he felt warmed in her embraces but remained silent all the time. She tried to dismiss his memory from her mind by telling herself that he had gone for good, and that it would be foolish on her part to entertain any hope of his return.
Meanwhile the sea repeated its invitation to the poet to jump into its waters and end her life. But she replied that she wanted to be left alone, and not to be pestered by the sea. Her thoughts again returned to her lover. She realised that she wanted no other lover but the one who had made love to her and left her. In bed with him, she used to feel that she was in paradise and the sixty - by - two - foot bed, was heaven for them. It was only after they left the bed and walked together in the open that they exposed themselves to the much wide space outside in the city.
The sea spoke to the poet again, urging her to end her life. If she waited for a natural death, her body would be placed on a funeral pyre and consumed by fire when she was cremated. If she jumped into the waters of the sea, she would meet a cool death; she would then be able to stretch her limbs on the cool sand at its bottom and be able to rest her head on the flowers growing there.
Turning away from the sea, the poet thought again of the blissful experience of lovemaking she had had with her lover. They had been meeting in the afternoons throughout summer for indulging in sex at the end of which their bodies would lie listlessly on the bed and their minds incapable of thinking by the heat of the sun.
The sea urged her again to put an end to the memories of her lovemaking in the past and the heartache she was undergoing. The sea added that it had waited for a long time for the right person, who would also be bright, like her, to come and enter its blue waters. But the poet replied that she was still young, she still needed her lover to reconstruct her life before thinking of destroying it, she still entertained a vague hope that her lover might come back, even though he might again forsake her. She asked the sea to leave her to herself. Turning away from the sea again, the poet said that it could wait yet she was not ready to drown herself in it and end her life. When Se waves were violently rushing towards the seashore in order to drown her, the poet spoke in her imagination to her absent lover. She had been resisting the sea's invitation so far, but she could not go on resisting it for ever.
