Pasa Thalassa Thalassa
“Pasa Thalassa Thalassa” mourns a sea-faring friend who disappeared ten years earlier without any message or sign. The speaker remembers his hard red face, pirate-like earrings, laughter, and home among roses and vines, but finds that home deserted and decayed: smoke no longer rises, swallows fall toward the sea, roses are gone, and the garden’s trellises resemble bones in ruins. As the speaker walks toward the valley and its living streets, he wonders where the lost man lies—perhaps in Indian deeps, the waters of Atlantis, or near the roaring Horn. Few people still remember him, and his existence has been reduced to a name possibly carved somewhere on the sea. The speaker descends toward the lights and murmur of men while imagining the friend silent beneath storms, far below the sea.
By Edwin Arlington Robinson · First published 1920 · Genre: Elegiac Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Maritime Poetry · 491 words
First lines
"The sea is everywhere the sea."
GONE - faded out of the story, the sea-faring friend I remember?
What this Textopian page supports
Pasa Thalassa Thalassa is listed on Textopian as a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, dated 1920 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Edwin Arlington Robinson
- Date: 1920 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Elegiac Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Maritime Poetry, Meditative Poetry, Memorial Poetry
- Length: 491 words
- Structure: 1 section, 21 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Pasa Thalassa Thalassa by Edwin Arlington Robinson
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Elegiac Poetry — The poem mourns a vanished seafaring friend, dwelling on his uncertain death, the decay of his former home, and the persistence of memory after loss.
- Lyric Poetry — It is a personal, emotionally concentrated meditation voiced by a speaker who reflects on absence, grief, remembrance, and mortality.
- Maritime Poetry — The sea governs the poem's imagery, setting, and symbolic force, representing both the presumed site of the friend's death and an indifferent, enduring natural power.
- Meditative Poetry — Rather than narrating events in detail, the poem contemplates unanswered questions about the missing man's fate, the passage of time, and human oblivion.
Tags
poetry · lyric poem · American literature · modern poetry · early twentieth century · classical allusion · Greek antiquity · the sea · journey · exile · longing · disillusionment