Water is everywhere in this short poem, and the speaker seems to want to be part of it. The opening lines read like a quiet set of instructions or a creed: go by water, talk to it, long to climb in. Then comes a strange, lovely image, "a dress of ten thousand hands," which could suggest ripples or waves touching and wrapping around a body. It feels both welcoming and a little uncanny.
The second stanza is the heart of it. "The water received the water" suggests a merging, like a stream meeting the sea or a person dissolving into what they love, and the result is "a great deal of joy." In the last lines the speaker leaves behind a harp, a symbol of music and art, for "a city of herring," a crowded shoal of fish. The poem seems to prefer living immersion over making songs about it. The mood is playful, dreamy, and freeing, with a feeling of happily letting go.