Bound by a strong and mystic chain

Robinson uses the seaweed as a metaphor for the chains that bind her mind to the incident. Throughout the majority of the poem, she repeats the phrase ?where the green billows play,? referencing the ?weeds? that ?all around the crags were bound.? This appears to be a metaphor for the fisherman?s and Robinson?s mental inabilities to escape the scene because of their guilt. Further, the references to the ?ebb of the tide? and the ?forever waving? of the weeds show the tiresome nature of the fisherman?s suffering.

The use of the word ?play? indicates a sort of taunting in the way the fisherman is plagued. The fisherman is clearly not in control of his emotions and has been taken over for thirty ?weary? years ?wasting a loathsome life away?. There is an allusion to a ?mystic? chain binding him to the situation ? perhaps Robinson is suggesting a supernatural control that is taking the fisherman?s guilt to an evil extreme; making the guilt literally inescapable. The supernatural images are extended with the descriptions of the ?specters gliding hand in hand.?

Most strikingly, this poem is very reminiscent of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner . Both Robinson?s fisherman and Coleridge?s mariner are bound to horrific, supernatural tales of the sea. They are sentenced to tragic, endless fates of going over their experiences time after time. Both are weakened by larger forces binding them to the event that so disturbed them.