Although many of Frost’s poems have warm and cozy associations in popular culture, others take a rather bleak view of the universe. Frost was a religious man, but he was skeptical about God's intentions and His role in the universe. In his 1922 poem “Design,” for example, Frost throws doubt on the assumption that everything in creation reflects the careful design of a benevolent and omniscient God.

There is, however, no parallel elsewhere in Frost’s oeuvre for the furious assault on the order and beauty of creation he offers in “Once by the Pacific.” Whatever energy normally holds the cosmos in balance is, in this poem, utterly overthrown. A malignant, chaotic force upends the peaceful coexistence of earth and water, and Frost provides no meaningful insight into its motivations. This is much more than a stormy night on the sea; the water is the harbinger of universal destruction. This recalls a Biblical episode from the Book of Genesis, where God drowns almost all of Earth's creatures (except for Noah and those on his ark) in a world-engulfing flood.