My darling, we sat together,
Comfortably in the light little boat;
The night was still, and we floated
on the broad watery road.

The ghostly island, the lovely one,
lay duskily in the moonlight;
there rang out lovely tones,
there the dancing mists waved.

The sounds there grew lovelier and lovelier,
and the dance surged back and forth;
but we floated past,
Comfortless on the wide sea.

 O give, dreaming from your soft pillow,
 half an ear to me!
 To my lute's playing
 you sleep! what more do you want?
 
 To my lute's playing
 the set of stars blesses
 eternal feelings;
 you sleep! what more do you want?
 
 Those eternal feelings
 lift me sublimely high,
 away from the earthly crowd;
 you sleep! what more do you want?
 
 Away from the earthly crowd
 you sever me only too abruptly,
 entrance me in this cool place;
 you sleep! what more do you want?
 
 You entrance me in this cool place,
 give me your ear only in your dreams.
 Ah, on your soft pillow
 you sleep! what more do you want?

The water roared, the water swelled;
a fisherman sat beside,
gazing calmly at his fishing line,
cool to his very heart.
And as he sits there and as he listens,
the waves split
and from the turbulent water
a watery woman bursts up.

She sang to him, and spoke to him:
"Why do you lure my children
with your human wit and cunning,
up here to this deadly glow?
Ah, if you only knew how pleasant the tiny fish
find it below the surface,
you would come down, just as you are,
and you would be well for the first time.

Does not the dear sun refresh itself
and the moon as well, in the sea?
Do they not turn their faces, breathing the waves
and thus becoming doubly fair?
Aren't you tempted by the deep sky,
the moist and transfiguring blue?
Aren't you tempted by your own face
shining in the eternal dew?"

The water roared, the water swelled,
and moistened his naked foot;
and his heart filled with the longing
that he felt at the greeting of his beloved.
She spoke to him, and sang to him;
then all was done for him;
half pulled by her and half sinking himself,
he went down and was never seen again.