Dark figures against a stormy sky
Les Silhouettes
"Like silhouettes against the sky."
Poem
The sea is flecked with bars of grey,The dull dead wind is out of tune,And like a withered leaf the moonIs blown across the stormy bay.
Etched clear upon the pallid sandLies the black boat: a sailor boyClambers aboard in careless joyWith laughing face and gleaming hand.
And overhead the curlews cry,Where through the dusky upland grassThe young brown-throated reapers pass,Like silhouettes against the sky.
In brief
SummaryThree short stanzas sketch a stormy shore at dusk. The sea is barred with grey, the wind is 'out of tune', and the moon is blown across the bay like a withered leaf. On the pale sand lies a black boat, and a sailor boy climbs aboard, laughing. Overhead curlews cry, and on the upland young reapers pass through the dusky grass, dark 'Like silhouettes against the sky'. The poem offers no comment, only shapes and shadows.
Key themes
"And like a withered leaf the moon"
Summary
The French title means 'The Silhouettes'. The first stanza sets a restless evening: 'The sea is flecked with bars of grey', 'The dull dead wind is out of tune', and the moon, 'like a withered leaf', is 'blown across the stormy bay'. In the second, the eye moves to the shore, where 'the black boat' lies 'Etched clear upon the pallid sand' and a sailor boy clambers aboard 'in careless joy With laughing face and gleaming hand'.
The third stanza lifts the view upward. Curlews cry overhead, and along the upland 'The young brown-throated reapers pass' through the dusky grass, 'Like silhouettes against the sky'. The poem ends on the image that gives it its title: people reduced to dark outlines, seen only by their shape against the fading light. Nothing happens beyond this; the poem is a single glance at a coast and its figures at the end of the day.
Characters
The sailor boy
Careless joy aboard
A boy who clambers into the black boat on the pale sand 'in careless joy With laughing face and gleaming hand'. He is the one bright, lively figure on a grey and stormy shore.
The reapers
Figures on the skyline
'The young brown-throated reapers' who pass through the dusky grass of the upland at evening. Seen from below against the fading sky, they appear only as dark outlines, the silhouettes of the title.
Themes
Light and shadow
The poem is built from contrasts of dark and pale. The black boat is 'Etched clear upon the pallid sand'; the reapers pass through 'dusky upland grass' and are seen only as 'silhouettes against the sky'. Even the moon is a dry leaf. The effect is like an engraving or an ink sketch, and the title names the technique.
Youth in a bleak scene
The setting is cheerless: bars of grey, a 'dull dead wind', a stormy bay, crying curlews. Against it the poem places the young: the sailor boy climbing aboard 'in careless joy With laughing face', and 'The young brown-throated reapers'. They seem untroubled by the weather and the dusk, and the poem sets their ease against the gloom without comment.
Quotes
Context
Les Silhouettes is the first of two short poems printed together as Impressions in Wilde's Poems (1881), among the Flowers of Gold; the second is La Fuite de la Lune. It is three four-line stanzas long and, like its companion, records a scene of sea, sky and figures without reflecting on it.
About this edition
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