Space

In line 6 of “View,” after Bell's narrator has pointed out that the trees separating the viewer from the sea are actually made of water themselves, he claims that the distance is also made of water. This description leads to a significant philosophical issue: by pointing out that the person and the sea are made of the same water that constitutes the air between them, Bell questions whether the distance exists at all. Things are ordinarily thought to be separated by space, but this poem erases that separation by positing the idea that all physical matter exists continuously. The space between the two objects is not empty but is in fact made of the same substance that the objects are made of; thus the two are connected.

This idea is explored further later in the poem, in line 18. Having described the distance between things as being composed of water...