Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 81-83
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides
- This is another sort of quiet moment in the poem, where things slow down and we stop for a second to look around.
- Paul leaves a village and goes up a hill ("the steep"). From there, he gets nice view of the Mystic River (another river around Boston) as it heads quietly out to sea.
Lines 84-86
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
- More of the quiet description: We hear about the alders (a kind of tree) that line up along ("skirt") the edge of the river.
- We also hear more about the sound of Paul's horse, which is soft when he's riding on sand and hard when he rides over stone ("the ledge").
- Again and again in this poem, it seems like we are watching and hearing Paul from a long way off, across a distance of time and space.