Symbol Analysis
Sure, we've got a ton of magazines, businesses, and starlets that are totally fine with the whole vice of vanity. But here, the speaker makes one of man's biggest weaknesses out to be part of the very reason why we might find ourselves at the bottom of the sea. All of the pretty things we associate with vanity, like jewels and mirrors (and US Weekly), likewise find themselves in the sea all washed up and totally useless.
- Lines 1-2: Right from the very beginning the sea is depicted as being far away from human vanity. So we know that this poem is going to draw some pretty clear distinctions between what man sees as important and what nature reminds us isn't.
- Lines 9-11: The mirrors that were meant to frame such opulence are the first symbols we see. A slimy sea worm crawls all over one too, which provides some neat, if creepy, imagery related to human vanity.
- Lines 12-14: The pretty jewels are just as lightless and useless as the mirrors and are "bleared, black, and blind" since there's no light down there to show them off. So all of the things that were meant to impress do quite the opposite in the sea.