Meeting at Night

Darkness and light are recurring motifs in both stanzas, first in nature and then in the enclosed human world. The atmosphere of darkness is apparent immediately with the “grey sea and the long black land” (Line 1). This, of course, is how the landscape appears at night. However, the darkness is not absolute. The half-moon that hangs low in the sky brings some welcome light and symbolically anticipates, given the long association in poetry and song between moonlight and romantic love, the two lovers. The moonlight also catches the wavelets that are stirred up in the water as the boat approaches land, and the man perceives them as “fiery ringlets” (Line 3)—little flashes of light in the gray of the sea. Thus nature, while calm and dark, shows also gleams of light. In Stanza 2, the human world seems to follow nature’s lead. Darkness envelops and pervades the house, but this is broken by the sudden spurt of light produced by the striking of the match. The recurring imagery of darkness and light thus suggests the coming of the brightness of love into the otherwise mundane lives of the lovers.