Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 48-50
What a relief it would be
to hear someone in the crew
cry out like a gull,
- Our speaker thinks it would be great to hear a fellow crewmember cry out… (we'll get to what in the next line).
- Saying that being on a whaling boat would be better than watching an in-flight movie on an airplane is probably already an unconventional stand to take. But to call it a "relief" is really weird.
- It's almost like a reversal. Normally we think of relief as what you might get when you come in to shore: relief from danger, from the constant pitching of the boat, from the bad food.
- But, in this case, our speaker thinks going from a place of safety and calm (the airplane) to one of action and danger would be a relief. Well, relief from what?
- We're guessing it's a relief from boredom and from an overwhelming feeling of passivity and purposelessness.
Lines 51-52
Oh Captain, Captain!
Where are we going now?
- Our speaker imagines a crewman calling out to the Captain to ask where they're headed next.
- So it seems that our speaker likes the idea of not having his course be so predetermined.
- Maybe he'd rather not know that he's flying from Seattle to New York, and that he'll arrive at about 8:31PM, and that his flight will feature drink service, an in-flight movie, and finally a second drink service approximately 45 minutes prior to landing.
- And it doesn't seem so much about him being the one to control where he goes. Notice he doesn't imagine himself as the captain.
- So, instead, we guess he just wants someone to be making it up. He wants some degree of flexibility, of wildness. He wants there to be room for the unknown.
- After all, if you volunteer to work on a boat with a mad captain, you're pretty much guaranteed to not know what's gonna go down. Or whether you'll be around to see it.