Les Silhouettes
The sea is flecked with bars of grey, The dull dead wind is out of tune, And like a withered leaf the moon Is blown across the stormy bay. Etched clear upon the pallid sand Lies the black boat: a sailor boy Clambers aboard in careless joy With laughing face and gleaming hand. And overhead the curlews cry, Where through the dusky upland grass The young brown-throated reapers pass, Like silhouettes against the sky.
Les Silhouettes - meaning Summary
Night Seaside, Fleeting Figures
Wilde paints a twilight coastal scene where a restless sea and a blown moon set a slightly ominous backdrop. Against that atmosphere a sailor boy boards a boat in carefree joy, while curlews and reapers move across the landscape like dark cutouts. The poem contrasts natural movement and human brightness with a sense of transience: the silhouetted figures feel both vividly present and quietly ephemeral within the dusky, mutable world.
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