The Flower Boat
The fisherman’s swapping a yarn for a yarn Under the hand of the village barber, And her in the angle of house and barn His deep-sea dory has found a harbor. At anchor she rides the sunny sod As full to the gunnel of flowers growing As ever she turned her home with cod From George’s bank when winds were blowing. And I judge from that elysian freight That all they ask is rougher weather, And dory and master will sail by fate To seek the Happy Isles together.
The Flower Boat - meaning Summary
From Harbor to Horizon
The poem presents a small, domestic scene in which a fisherman’s dory, now parked by a house and filled with flowers, signals a shift from active seafaring to settled life. Frost uses the boat as a symbol of retirement or peaceful repose, while the speaker senses a lingering desire for renewed adventure. The final lines suggest a gentle hope or certainty that boat and owner will one day undertake a final voyage to the "Happy Isles," implying a consoling vision of death or an afterlife reunion rather than loss alone.
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