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

Virna Sheard was a Canadian poet and novelist associated with the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She gained recognition for her poetry collections such as 'The Miracle, and Other Poems' and 'A Sea of Sunset'. Her work often explored themes of love, spirituality, and the natural world. Apart from poetry, she also wrote several novels that contributed significantly to Canadian literature of her time.

Virna Sheard

The Unknowing

Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

A Southern Lullaby

Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

The Knight-Errant

Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

The Fairy Clock

Virna Sheard, 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

Sea-Born

Afar in the turbulent city,
In a hive where men make gold,
He stood at his loom from dawn to dark,
While the passing years were told.

And when he knew it was summer-time
By the grey dust on the street,
By the lingering hours of daylight,
And the sultry noon-tide heat -

Oh! he longed as a captive sea-bird
To leave his cage and be free,
For his heart like a shell kept singing
The old, old song of the sea.

And amid the noise and confusion
Of wheels that were never still,
He heard the wind through the scented pines
On a rough, storm-beaten hill;

While, beyond a maze of painted threads,
Where his tireless shuttle flew,
In fancy he saw the sunlit waves
Beckon him out to the blue.

Virna Sheard

Under the Sea.

Under the sea, the great wide sea
    That sweeps the golden shore;
What treasures lie beneath the waves
    Forevermore!

Ask of the winds, the sobbing winds
    That toss the waves on high;
And fling the burden of their song
    Unto the sky.

Ask of the stars, the jeweled stars
    That sleep within the tide;
Like golden lilies floating far,
    And swinging wide.

Ask of the clouds that drift at noon
    In fadeless seas of blue,
And looking down see skies beneath
    Of deeper hue.

Up in the sky, the golden clouds
    Will never make reply;
Deep in the sea, the jeweled stars
    In silence lie.

Under the sea, the great wide sea
    That sweeps the golden shore,
Are secrets hidden from us now
  ...

Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

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

Alma Venus

Only a breath - hardly a breath! The shore
Is still a huddled alabaster floor
Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold,
Stern wreckage of the fiercely frozen wave,
Gleaming in mailed wastes of white and gold;
As though the sea, in an enchanted grave,
Of fearful crystal locked, no more shall stir
Softly, all lover, to the April moon:
Hardly a breath! yet was I now aware
Of a most delicate balm upon the air,
Almost a voice that almost whispered "soon"!

Not of the earth it was - no living thing
Moves in the iron landscape far or near,
Saving, in raucous flight, the winter crow,
Staining the whiteness with its ebon wing,
Or silver-sailing gull, or 'mid the drear
Rock cedars, like a summer soul astray,
A lone red squirrel makes believe to play,
N...

Richard Le Gallienne

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