Sea Treasures

The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.
I wiped away the weeds and foam---
I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore
With the sun and sand and the wild uproar.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson


When it came night,
The white waves paced to and fro
In the moonlight.
And the great wind brought the sound
Of the great sea's voice to the ment on shore
And they felt that they could then be interpreters.
~Steven Crane






I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell,
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely, and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy, for from within were heard
Murmurings, where by the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with his native sea.
~William Wordsworth




Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither.
~William Wordsworth






FRUTTA DI MARE


I am a seashell flung
Up from the ancient sea;
Now I lie here, among
Roots of a tamarisk tree;
No one listens to me.




I sing to myself all day
In a husky voice, quite low,
Things the great fishes say
And you must need to know;
All night I sing just so.








But lift me form the ground,
And hearken at my rim,
Only your sorrow's sound
Amazed, perplexed, and dim,
Comes boiling to the brim;


For what the wise whales ponder
Awaking out from sleep,
The key to all your wonder,
The answers of the deep,
These to myself I keep.
~Geoffrey Scott




HATTERAS CALLING


Southeast, and storm, and every weathervane
shivers and moans upon its dripping pin,
ragged on chimneys the cloud whips, the rain
howls at the flues and windows to get in,


the golden rooster claps his golden wings
and from the Baptist Chapel shrieks no more,
the golden arrow in the southeast sings
and hears on the roof the Atlantic Ocean roar.


Waves among wires, sea scudding over poles,
down every alley the magnificence of rain,
dead gutters live once more, the deep manholes
hollow in triumph a passage to the main.


Umbrellas, and in the Gardens one old man
hurries away along a dancing path,
listens to music on a watering-can,
observes among the tulips the sudden wrath,


pale willows thrashing to the needled lake,
and dinghies filled with water; while the sky
smashes the lilacs, swoops to shake and break,
till shattered branches shriek and railings cry.


Speak, Hatteras, your language of the sea:
scour with kelp and spindrift the stale street:
that man in terror may learn once more to be
child of that hour when rock and ocean meet.
~Conrad Aiken

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