The speaker is awfully interested in who gets to talk in this
poem. In the first stanza, he says he wishes that he could
express his thoughts, but he can't. Then he describes the kids
who are shouting and playing, and the sailor who is singing.
These guys get to express themselves – why can't our speaker?
Then, in the third stanza, we start to figure out why he can't
talk: it's because his friend's "voice is still." Our speaker is
all choked up on grief that he doesn't know how to express. -
Lines 3-4: The speaker uses synecdoche, or substituting a part
of something for the whole thing, when he wishes that his
"tongue could utter." Because, yeah, your "tongue" is the part
that does the speaking, but not on its own, unless you're
talking in your sleep or something. The speaker uses metaphor
when he says that his "thoughts" "arise," since thoughts don't
literally move around. - Lines 5-6: The "fisherman's boy" is
"shout[ing]," but we don't know what he's saying – it may be
utter nonsense as he's playing with hi