I have heard the sea-lady sing.
The legend says that she doesn't sing just for anyone, no.
Well, that is, she sings, but not everyone can hear it.
Her songs tell stories.
Lengthy, but not dull.
When I was very small, I would creep out of the house at night
And perch on the beaten rocks by the sea
And wait to hear if she would spin her tales.
Some nights, it was very cold and rainy and the waves beat into the rocks and thunder shook the earth.
Others, the sun cast its rosy glare very late, and my skin would turn pink with the heat of it kissing my face.
Some nights, I'd simply be too tired to leave my warm bed, and I'd content myself with falling asleep to the waves whispering to me.
But then there were those nights, when the moon was an opal on a dark velvet dress, when the eerie tune of the sea lady would aft through my bedroom window and bring me to her.
The air was always charged with something intangible and wonderful, and I would always hardly dare dream it was her magic.
Even when I was not so small, these nights would still come, and I would dutifully follow to the shore.
I was ever so silent as I curled up on the rocks, which felt only like the smoothest, weather-worn stones.
It was always only me.
Well, that is, I was the only human.
Things I didn't even know what came to hear her concert.
What a curious group of fish-people we must have seemed!
And there, in the center - the sea-lady!
With such entrancing features, such a opalescent gaze!
Her eyes were eerie and shone when she sung.
I forgot myself for hours as we heard her tales of the sea, of sailors meeting their deaths by mermaids, of sharks fighting, of the monstrous beasts who made their homes at the deepest leagues of the sea.
The relics of warships, luxury lines, submarines, even, she sung about.
She sung of Triton, and the kingdoms under the sea.
The little crowd would sigh and simper
That is, as much as fish can do
And then she would swim over to me, to my perch on the rocks.
Gently, so gently, like a wave washing over a stone, she would caress me cheek with pale, pearly hands.
And she would sing to me about mermaids, and when she touched my feet, she gave me a tail.
When she retracted her hand, I had legs again.
Many years passed in this manner
Each morning the sea kissed me awake, and I would pitter-patter through the sand to our house to awake each morning in my bed.
But I would never forget what the sea-lady taught me the night before.
It was many years since she first called to me that she called to me for the last time.
It became different when she removed her hand from my legs.
And I slipped into the sea with more ease than I did into my bed.
It was that night - so pearly, so lustrous, so shimmering - that the sea-lady kissed my forehead
And I watched her sink to the bottom of the sea.

I have heard the sea-lady sing
Have you?