But Downie immediately complicates that claim. She adds: (line 23). This is the elegiac voice again: the dusk advances, the tide must turn, the boy will eventually go indoors. The ending is inevitable. However, the poem does not rest there. The final two lines perform a breathtaking reversal:
The boy’s play with the sea is described in terms that invert the normal relationship between child and nature. When he "runs shorewards feigning fear, / Like a father being chased by his own child" (lines 15–16), the sea chases after him, "monstrously grey" (line 17). But the moment he turns, it "whitens and retreats" (line 18). This is a brilliant reversal: the boy is the active agent, the sea merely a respondent. The simile of the father being chased by his child is also telling. Normally we think of children chasing parents; here the boy is the father, and the sea is the child. The boy, though a child himself, occupies the position of the originator, the creator, the one who calls the universe into play. window freda downie analysis
She kneels on a chair, Her elbows on the sill. But Downie immediately complicates that claim