The King of the Seas
The King of the Seas - meaning Summary
Sea Speaks of Loss
A narrated address in which the Ocean recounts finding a dead lover laid in its depths and asks the speaker to tell a grieving woman. The poem frames the sea as both burial place and mournful witness, describing funeral-like riches and attendants. It ends by widening the grief: the sovereign of the sea is himself overwhelmed by deaths, reduced by fate to a helpless, childlike figure amid a surplus of corpses.
Read Complete AnalysesThe 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 surplus of toys.'
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