The Mermaid
I
Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?
II
I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
'Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill inner sound
Over the throne
In the midst of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.
III
But at night I would wander away, away,
I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,
And lightly vault from the throne and play
With the mermen in and out of the rocks;
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek,
On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells,
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.
But if any came near I would call and shriek,
And adown the steep like a wave I would leap
From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells;
For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea.
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,
In the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea.
Then all the dry-pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking down for the love of me.
Literary Analysis
This literary analysis was generated with AI and may contain interpretive differences. Provide your analysis in the comments section.
Summary
Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem imagines a mermaid speaking her own wishes with a mixture of playful charm and romantic yearning. It begins with a question about who would choose the mermaid's beautiful isolation, then answers through the mermaid's fantasy of a life spent singing, grooming, and reigning beneath the sea. The poem moves from stillness to motion: first the mermaid is admired in her underwater throne, then she becomes active and social, roaming with the mermen by night and attracting the attention of sea creatures and their king.
What gives the poem its depth is the tension between self-sufficiency and desire. The mermaid seems to delight in her solitary splendor, yet she repeatedly asks who loves her and imagines herself courted by the entire underwater world. Her beauty draws admiration, but it also creates a life of endless pursuit and performance. The final effect is both enchanting and slightly unsettling: the mermaid's fantasy of freedom is inseparable from the pressures of being desired, so the poem quietly questions whether perfect beauty can ever be fully restful or free.
Theme
- Desire for love and recognition - The mermaid's repeated question about who loves her shows that admiration is central to her imagined world, even when she appears isolated and self-contained.
- Beauty as power - Her golden hair, pearl comb, and royal throne make beauty feel like a form of authority, able to command the attention of sea creatures and their king.
- Solitude and self-enclosure - The opening image of the mermaid singing alone suggests a life apart from others, yet the poem keeps testing whether solitude can really be satisfying.
- Performance and identity - The mermaid seems to exist in part as a figure who is watched, sung to, and desired, making her identity inseparable from how others respond to her.
- Freedom versus possession - She imagines playful wandering at night, but also being wooed and married, creating a tension between movement, choice, and romantic capture.
- Fantasy and enchantment - The richly colored underwater setting turns desire into a dreamscape where ordinary social life becomes magical ritual and spectacle.
Literary Devices
- Repetition - The repeated phrases and gestures, such as the mermaid's singing and combing, create a hypnotic rhythm that mirrors the circular, self-enclosed world she imagines.
- Imagery - Tennyson fills the poem with vivid visual details-golden hair, pearl, crimson shells, purple twilights-that make the underwater setting feel luxurious and alive.
- Rhyme and musicality - The lyric's songlike sound reinforces the mermaid's identity as a singer and gives the poem a flowing, enchanted movement.
- Metaphor - The mermaid's hair is compared to a fountain of gold, turning an ordinary action into a symbol of radiance and abundance.
- Personification - Sea creatures are given human-like desire and emotion, which makes the underwater world feel socially rich and strangely courtly.
- Alliteration - Soft repeated consonants help imitate the smooth motion of water and the poem's gentle, lulling atmosphere.
- Enjambment - Sentences spill across line breaks, creating a sense of movement and continuous longing rather than a neatly contained thought.
Symbolism
- The mermaid - She can symbolize idealized feminine beauty, alluring independence, and the loneliness that can accompany being endlessly desired.
- The throne - The underwater throne suggests both royal authority and isolation, placing the mermaid above others while also keeping her apart from them.
- The comb of pearl - This object symbolizes refinement, self-fashioning, and the careful construction of beauty.
- Golden hair - The hair stands for radiance, attractiveness, and the power that beauty holds over others.
- The sea-snake - Its slow, reverent approach can symbolize the force of desire awakening from deep sleep.
- The king of them all - He represents the culmination of romantic pursuit and the social order that gathers around the mermaid's beauty.
Tone
Tennyson's tone is teasing, admiring, and faintly ironic, as though he is delighted by the mermaid's glamorous fantasy while also aware of its underlying complications. The mood for the reader is lush and dreamy, but it is not entirely carefree: beneath the shimmering surface lies a quiet unease about loneliness, longing, and the exhausting nature of being adored.
Historical Context
Tennyson's poetry often reflects the Victorian fascination with beauty, yearning, and the strange borderlands between reality and imagination. In the nineteenth century, mermaids and other mythic sea figures were popular literary subjects because they allowed poets to explore desire, otherness, and the allure of unreachable worlds.
The poem also fits the broader Victorian lyric tradition, which often combines musical language with compressed emotional drama. Its enchanted setting and courtly imagery draw on long-established romantic and folkloric ideas, while its subtle tension between independence and romantic possession feels especially at home in Tennyson's refined, psychologically suggestive style.
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