By quivering seas that sever
And severing seas that quiver
A ceaseless sorrowing song,
I cannot sing forever,
For that would be too long.”
The Princess waited, and the voice began again. It seemed farther out on the water now, as if the singer were moving out to sea. The words appeared to her to be so strange that she never forgot them, and I am able to repeat them to you precisely as she gave them to me afterward.
“O weary the sea’s commotion,
And weary the sea tides’ fret,
The fretful tides of the ocean