The Song of the Oceanides

'Tis nightfall and paler grows the sea.And alone with his lonely soul,There sits a man on the cold strandAnd turns his death-cold glancesTowards the vast, death-cold vault of heaven,And toward the vast, billowy sea.On airy sails float forth his sighs;And melancholy they return,And find the heart close-locked,Wherein they fain would anchor.And he groans so loud that the white sea-mews,Startled out of their sandy nests,Flutter circling around him.And he laughingly speaks to them thus:

"Ye black-legged birds,With white wings, oversea flutterers!With crooked beaks, salt-water bibbers,Ye oily seal-flesh devourers!Your life is as bitter as your food.I, however, the fortunate, taste naught but sweets!I taste the fragrance of the rose,The moonshine-nourished bride of the nightingale.I taste still sweeter sugar-plums,Stuffed with whipped cream.And the sweetest of all things I taste,The sweets of loving and of being loved!

"She loves me, she loves me, the dear girl!Now stands she at home on the balcony of her house,And gazes forth in the twilight upon the street,And listens and yearns for me,--really!Vainly does she glance around, and sigh,And sighing she descends to the garden,And wanders midst the fragrance and the moonlight,And talks to the flowers, and tells themHow I, her beloved, am so lovely and so lovable--really!Later in her bed, in her sleep, in her dreams,Blissfully she hovers about my precious image,So that in the morning at breakfastUpon the glistening buttered bread,She sees my smiling face,And she devours it for sheer love--really!"

Thus boasted and boasted he,And meanwhile screamed the sea-mews,As with cold, ironical tittering.The twilight mists ascended,Uncannily forth from lilac cloudsPeered the greenish-yellow moon.Loud roared the billows,And deep from the loud roaring sea,As plaintive as a whispering monsoon,Sounded the song of the Oceanides--Of the beautiful, compassionate mermaids,Distinct midst them all the lovely voiceOf the silver-footed spouse of Peleus--And they sigh and sing:

"Oh fool, thou fool, thou boasting fool,Tormented with misery!Destroyed are all thy hopes,The playful children of the heart--And ah! thy heart, Niobe-like,Is petrified with grief!In thy brain falls the night,And therein are unsheathed the lightnings of frenzy,And thou makest a boast of thy trouble!Oh fool, thou fool, thou boasting fool!Stiff-necked art thou as thy forefather,The lofty Titan, who stole celestial fireFrom the gods, and bestowed it upon man.And tortured by eagles chained to the rock,Olympus-high he flung defiance, flung defiance and groaned,Till we heard it in the depths of the sea,And came to him with the song of consolation.Oh fool, thou fool, thou boasting fool!Thou, however, art more impotent still.'Twere more seemly that thou shouldst honor the gods,And patiently bear the burden of misery,And patiently bear it, long, so long,Till Atlas himself would lose patience,And cast from his shoulders the ponderous worldInto eternal night."

So rang the song of the Oceanides,Of the beautiful compassionate mermaids,Until louder waves overpowered it.Behind the clouds retired the moon,The night yawned,And I sat long thereafter in the darkness and wept.