In section 2, the poet, still identifying himself with other dreamers, first assumes the role of an old woman: "It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman's." Later he sees a shroud and he becomes a shroud. In the coffin, "it is not evil or pain here, it is blank here." Thus, says the poet, "everything in the light and air ought to be happy/ . . . he has enough."
This section shows more identification of the poet — this time, with objects. He enters a coffin to experience death, and this experience, by contrast, makes him aware of the value of life. All the poet's experiences are facets of his total vision of life.
The poet, in section 3, sees a "beautiful gigantic swimmer" and observes "his white body" and "undaunted eyes." He implores the waves not to kill "the courageous giant . . . in the prime of his middle age." The swimmer struggles hard but is defeated by "the slapping eddies." The corpse swiftly passes out of the poet's sight.
The disorganized dream sequence has now ended, and sections 3 and 4 are both clearly and coherently formed. The images in both sections are drawn from death by the sea and are very meaningfully expressed. In section 3, the poet observes a swimmer. The seashore is a symbol of the gulf that separates life from death. The handsome swimmer is pitted against the sea in an unequal struggle; the triumph of the ocean against man is a recurrent theme in American literature. Man is defeated by the sea; but the sea is also a symbol of the world of the spirit. Thus spiritual reality is realized by man through death.
The poet is deeply involved, in section 4, and therefore unable to "extricate" himself from the experience of death on the seashore. The "razory ice-wind" causes a shipwreck. The poet hears "the burst as she strikes." He rushes to the surf but is unable to help. All he can do is wait until the next morning to "help pick up the dead and lay them in rows in a barn."
