A personified ocean pulls the speaker aside and points to a woman weeping on the beach. It tells him to go and tell her that her lover is dead—his body now resting in a cool, green underwater chamber decorated with golden sand and coral pillars, two white fish standing guard. Then the ocean insists on adding something stranger: the king of the seas weeps too, a helpless old man whose hands are constantly heaped with corpses by the fates, until he stands burdened like a child with too many toys. The speaker is just a messenger, relaying a cosmic grief that feels both intimate and vast. The imagery is lovely and eerie at once, but the final simile twists the knife—grief becomes something almost absurd in its excess, a pile of broken playthings. The mood is melancholy, uncanny, and filled with a sense of forces too large to comfort.
The ocean said to me once — Summary
The ocean said to me once, "Look! Yonder on the shore Is a woman, weeping. I have watched her. Go you and tell her this -- Her lover I have laid In cool green hall. There is wealth of golden sand And pillars, coral-red; Two white fish stand guard at his bier.
"Tell her this And more -- That the king of the seas Weeps too, old, helpless man. The bustling fates Heap his hands with corpses Until he stands like a child With a surplus of toys."