These are my murmur-laden shells that keep <br />A fresh voice tho' the years be very gray. <br />The wave that washed their lips and tuned their lay <br />Is gone, gone with the faded ocean sweep, <br />The royal tide, gray ebb and sunken neap <br />And purple midday,--gone! To this hot clay <br />Must sing my shells, where yet the primal day, <br />Its roar and rhythm and splendour will not sleep. <br />What hand shall join them to their proper sea <br />If all be gone? Shall they forever feel <br />Glories undone and world that cannot be?-- <br />'Twere mercy to stamp out this aged wrong, <br />Dash them to earth and crunch them with the heel <br />And make a dust of their seraphic song.<br /><br />Trumbull Stickney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-some-shells-found-inland/
