THE SEA-MAID

I heard an immortal, under the sea, Singing the beauty of change and death. Oh lovelier than light was she, And Araby was in her breath. She lay in a hollow of stainless air Roofed and walled with a crystal gleam; No light wind stirred to quiver her hair Or loose from her eyes the banded dream. Her voice was the piping voice of a child, Shrill, pathetic. I do not know Whether I wept or whether I smiled To hear her chant of curious woe. The sea-maid sang, “Never shall I die. The evil eye, The spine, the fang Have not any power,— No spell, no charm May wither or harm My beauty’s flower. For, I suppose, I am fair, more fair Than any rose Or earth-bloom rare, Or maid of the earth, Or, faint and far, Heaven’s dark birth Of a radiant star. And yet they are crowned With a joy not mine, With a light divine Who have found, have found The secret of change,— They are born, they grow, They are dark, they glow, They are new, wild, strange. But I remain Immortal, I Who am fain, oh fain To change or die. Once was a time I found the wreck Of a ship sublime With a masted deck: I peeped through the hull And what should it hold But shimmering gold And a shining skull And broken glass And twisted steel, And a steering-wheel Of oak and brass. I loved them and watched them day by day, I watched their beautiful slow decay. I watched them soften and break and rust, And thicken with weeds and fall to dust. But when they were crumbled quite, there came The fish that are centuries-through the same, Their lifted lids that ought to be wise Arching high over vacant eyes. With gaping mouth and sloping chin, And face fixed hard in a solemn grin, They softly murmured, The passing hour Over our beauty has no power. I turned. I looked in my crystal glass. My splendour was bright as ever it was. And I wept, and I weep, that I should remain Immortal, unchanging, without a stain.”