Summary

The speaker reflects on the moment after a storm. However, the calm is even worse than the storm itself – a storm can only last a short time before "wear(ing) out themselves, or us" (5). A calm, however, can last indefinitely.

This calm is just as dangerous as the storm, because the ship is rooted in place. Everything good and bad aboard the ship "decays" (13). The people aboard can do nothing to help themselves or each other.

All they could do would be to try to swim to shore, but that would be impossible. The speaker concludes that human beings have no power over their existence –except the power to "feel this misery" (56).

Analysis

This poem is dense, rich with philosophical and religious allusion, and ultimately nihilistic in theme – even for John Donne, whose oeuvre could be broadly characterized by all these poetic traits. "The Calm...