A mother forms a child from coral and foam and sends her into the human world. The little blue figure creeps to town, sleeps in a doorway, and has no one to answer her cries. She sells the corals and foam, her rainbow heart breaks, and she crawls back to the only home she knows. But the mother does not welcome her back. Instead, she tells her to return to the darkling land, because the sea holds only sad water and sifting sand. The speaker’s voice is sorrowful and resigned, maybe even a little cold. The child is caught between two worlds: too strange for the town, yet no longer able to stay in the sea. The mood is lonely, dreamlike, and quietly tragic.
The Sea Child — Summary
Into the world you sent her, mother, Fashioned her body of coral and foam, Combed a wave in her hair’s warm smother, And drove her away from home.
In the dark of the night she crept to the town And under a doorway she laid her down, The little blue child in the foam-fringed gown.
And never a sister and never a brother To hear her call, to answer her cry. Her face shone out from her hair’s warm smother Like a moonkin up in the sky.
She sold her corals; she sold her foam; Her rainbow heart like a singing shell Broke in her body: she crept back home.
Peace, go back to the world, my daughter, Daughter, go back to the darkling land; There is nothing here but sad sea water, And a handful of sifting sand.