The Scallop Shell

A scallop shell, loosed by the lifting tide,
        Had left a friendly shore, the seas to brave;
Its lips of pink and snowy hollow shone
        Pure in the sun, a pearl upon the wave.

It gleamed and passed-you burdened it with love,
        With sweet long futures, new and dreamy days:
And named for me-because I held your hopes.
        I bid you hush-not meriting your praise.

I pointed, where your vessel came to shore,
        Wrecked where the tiny breakers rose and fell;
And bid your voyagers not put to sea
        So fail a craft as this poor scallop shell.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Dora Sigerson Shorter was an Irish poet and sculptor born in Dublin in 1866. She was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival, a movement that aimed to promote Irish literature and culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was also a close friend of W.B. Yeats and married the writer and journalist Clement King Shorter. Dora's work often dealt with themes of Irish nationalism and folklore, and she published several volumes of poetry before her untimely death in 1918.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

The Old Maid

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

Sanctuary

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

You Will Not Come Again

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

All Souls Eve

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

A Shell.

Oh, take this shell, this pretty thing
    With tinted waves of pearly red;
Hold close your ear and hear it sing,
    Then tell me what its voice hath said.
    A song of surges deep and strong,
    A song of summer sweet and long,
    A sound of storm and wind and rain,
    A sound of joy--a glad refrain.

O plaything of the idle sea,
    Whence come these changing tints of thine?
Have sunset clouds looked down on thee
    And stained thee with their hues divine?
    Oh, tell the secrets thou must know
    Of clouds above and waves below;
    Oh, whisper of the bending sky
    And ocean caves where jewels lie.

O beauteous sea-shell, tinged with red,
    What dost thou know; what canst thou tell?
Unto what mysteries are thou wed,
    ...

Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

The Sea-Shell

Oh, fairy palace of pink and pearl
Frescoed with filigree silver-white,
Down in the silence beneath the sea
God by Himself must have fashioned thee
Just for His own delight!

But no! - For a dumb and shapeless thing
Stirring in darkness its little hour,
Thy walls were built with infinite care,
Thou sea-scented home, so fine and fair,
Perfect - and like a flower!

Virna Sheard

A Shell.

From what rock-hollow'd cavern deep in ocean,
    Where jagged columns break the billow's beat,
Whirl'd upward by some wild mid-world commotion,
    Has this rose-tinted shell steer'd to my feet?

Perchance the wave that bore it has rejoiced
    Above Man's founder'd hopes, and shatter'd pride,
Whilst fierce Euroclydon swept, trumpet-voiced,
    Through the frail spars, and hurl'd them in the tide,
    And the lost seamen floated at its side!

Ah! thus too oft do Woe and Beauty meet,
    Swept onward by the self-same tide of fate,
The bitter following swift upon the sweet,
    Close, close together, yet how separate!

Frail waif from the sublime storm-shaken sea,
    Thou seem'st the childhood toy of some old king,
Who 'mid the shock of nations light...

Walter R. Cassels

The Tide.

Landward the tide setteth buoyantly breezily, -
    Landward the waves ripple sparkling and free, -
Ho, the proud ship, like a thing of life, easily,
    Gracefully sweeps o'er the white-crested sea!
In from the far-away lands she is steering now,
    Straight for her anchorage, fearless and free, -
Lo, as I gaze, how she seems to be nearing now,
    Sun-lighted shores, a still haven, and me!

Landward the tide setteth! - mark my proud argosy
    As the breeze flutters her pennons of snow,
Wafting from far the glad mariner's melody
    O'er the blue waters in rhythmical flow!
Tell me, oh, soul of mine, what is the freightage fair
    'Neath her white wings that she beareth to thee?
Treasures of golden ore, gems from Golconda's shore,
    Lo, she is brin...

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)

When You Are On The Sea

How can I laugh or dance as others do,
        Or ply my rock or reel?
My heart will still return to dreams of you
        Beside my spinning-wheel.

My little dog he cried out in the dark,
        He would not whisht for me:
I took him to my side-why did he bark
        When you were on the sea?

I fear the red cock-if he crow to-night-
        I keep him close and warm,
Twere ill with me, if he should wake in fright
        And you out in the storm.

I dare not smile for fear my laugh would ring
        Across your dying ears;
O, if you, drifting, drowned, should hear me sing
        And think I had not tears.

I never thought the sea could wake such waves,
        Nor that such winds could be;
I never wept when other eyes grew...

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Inlet And Shore.

Here is a world of changing glow,
Where moods roll swiftly far and wide;
Waves sadder than a funeral's pride,
Or bluer than the harebell's blow!

The sunlight makes the black hulls cast
A firefly radiance down the deep;
The inlet gleams, the long clouds sweep,
The sails flit up, the sails drop past.

The far sea-line is hushed and still;
The nearer sea has life and voice;
Each soul may take his fondest choice, -
The silence, or the restless thrill.

O little children of the deep, -
The single sails, the bright, full sails,
Gold in the sun, dark when it fails,
Now you are smiling, then you weep!

O blue of heaven, and bluer sea,
And green of wave, and gold of sky,
And white of sand that stretches by,
Toward east and west, away...

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop