Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SEA-SHELL by EDWIN JOHN PRATT

First Line: THOU SILVER SHELL THAT LIEST NEAR
Last Line: OF DAYS WITH GRAY IS OVERCAST.
Subject(s): ART & ARTISTS; MEMORY; SCULPTURE & SCULPTORS;
THOU silver shell that liest near
The pebbled margin of the sea,
Bidding sunbeams reappear
In opal-cinctured tracery!

What wondrous artist wove those lines
Of ivory flamed with green and gold,
And bordered thee with blue designs
Of Heaven's pencil, fold on fold?

Whence came that myriad-voiced stream
Within those coral veins—that flow
Of murmurous melody whose theme
Swings round a rapture, and a woe?

They tell us that the Ocean's birth
Is anthemed in thy hidden strings,
That every choral song of Earth
Still to thy sculptured gateway clings;

That from thy sweet-tongued numbers rise
The herald notes of distant stars,
Awaking slumber—laden skies
Across the Morn's soft opening bars;

That centuried thunders darkly dwell
Somewhere within thy curled retreat,
Lulled by yon sapphire-bosomed swell
That steals to shore on zephyred feet.

But list! What notes are these that fall
In broken music wildly strange,
Like Autumn answering Winter's call
To seared embrace, that soon must change

Her mellowed hours to barren days,
To shadowed union with the tomb,
And close her harvest songs of praise
With threnodies of blighted bloom?

Do these reflect thy mother's moods,
Pearled miniature of troubled years!
Her sombre-suited solitudes,
Her cadences of wailful fears?

Or, is it thus alas! too true,
Thou tellest to the listening ear
Its own sad stories, old and new,
Its coming sorrows, distant, near?

If so thou singest, then how soon,—
Frail warden of Life's chambered past,
Seer of its yet-to-be—@3my@1 Noon
Of days with gray is overcast.



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