The poem thus realizes Crane's aspiration to present his readers with a new word, never before uttered and impossible to articulate, a verb that is perpetually novel, fleeting, and transient, embodying a "Protean" quality that resists the fixed constraints of meaning imposed by grammar. Additionally, it serves as a prologue to the more expansive and exploratory sequences found in the concluding section of White Buildings, titled Voyages.

The imagery of unpaced beaches and icy speeches metaphorically suggests the erosion of language preceding its revitalization into the rhythmic and crystalline expressions of poetry. This transition from emptiness to fullness is underscored by the chiasmic structure of the verses and further emphasized in the depiction of the luminous abyss.

Crane extends this idea of perpetual youth to encompass the continuous renewal of language, achieved in this stanza through various neologisms. By subverting their traditional meanings, the poet promises a reinvention of words: "trough," normally a noun, is here given a new verbal dimension; "swim," typically intransitive, is transformed into a transitive verb...

The sibilant consonant, reminiscent of a serpent's hiss, is symbolically linked to the reptile’s shedding of its skin, representing the perpetual release of the past or the concept of eternal recurrence. This imagery resonates with Emerson’s portrayal in his essay on nature: “the lover of nature […] has retained the spirit of infancy […] In the woods too, a man casts off his year, as the snake his slough, and at whatever period of life, is always a child. In the woods is perpetual youth.”

The conclusion of the poem, marked by the disintegration of the page and memory, ultimately realizes the initial promise of the primal utterance introduced at the poem's outset. The sibilant sounds (sea, sapphire, promised, infancy) from the first stanza gain prominence in this final section, intensifying within the auditory space through words like sand, us, abyss, serpent, swam, sun, and unpaced.

The pentameter, associated with the promise of a silence preceding language (I was promised an improved infancy), the initial ascent (My memory I left in a ravine), and the subversive wind of poetic inspiration (I had joined the entrainments of the wind), underscores this shift. As a terrain of conflict between self and other, the open (opening) and the closed (coffin), the continuous (constant) and the fleeting (fleeing) pave the way for the poem’s ultimate resolution in the final stanza.

One represents the custodian of the biographical text (my book), memory,, while the other seeks poetic glory (laurel) & finds salvation in the transient & transience, ironically reflecting on the past enshrined in a tomb (smiling an iron coffin). The martial imagery of the spear piercing the oak, coupled with the omission of the article in the phrase “very oak,” indicates that the tree—once a symbol of genealogy—is no longer as robust, now appearing mutilated and split.

the interrogative phrase “And had I walked the dozen particular decimals of time?” introduces an element of irony into the narrative voice, casting doubt on the poetic "I"'s return to the ravine of memory, its immersion in time, & its personal history. This irony is further underscored by the interaction between the "I" & the thief, emphasizing a fundamental division in the discourse: rather than a singular unified subject as at the poem’s outset, there are now two distinct figures.