THERE lay upon the ocean's shore What once a tortoise served to cover. A year and more, with rush and roar, The surf had rolled it over, Had played with it, and flung it by, As wind and weather might decide it, Then tossed it high where sand-drifts dry Cheap burial might provide it. It rested there to bleach or tan, The rains had soaked, the suns had burned it; With many a ban the fisherman Had stumbled o'er and spurned it; And there the fisher-girl would stay, Conjecturing with her brother How in their play the poor estray Might serve some use or other. So there it lay, through wet and dry, As empty as the last new sonnet, Till by and by came Mercury, And, having mused upon it, "Why, here," cried he, "the thing of things In shape, material, and dimension! Give it but strings, and, lo, it sings, A wonderful invention!" So said, so done; the chords he strained, And, as his fingers o'er them hovered, The shell disdained a soul had gained, The lyre had been discovered. O empty world that round us lies, Dead shell, of soul and thought forsaken, Brought we but eyes like Mercury's, In thee what songs should waken! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FOR WALT WHITMAN by DAVID IGNATOW THE LOVER'S MESSAGE; SONG by JOHN DRYDEN INLAND by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY THE RUBAIYAT, 1879 EDITION: 13 by OMAR KHAYYAM ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. MR. GEORGE WHITEFIELD, 1770 by PHILLIS WHEATLEY THE MAUSOLEUM by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN SPRING IN TOWN by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT ON SEEING THE BEAUTIFUL SEAT OF LORD GALLOWAY by ROBERT BURNS |