The Shell And The World.

The world was like a shell to me, -
Its voice with distant song was low;
But now its mysteries I know:
I hear the turmoil of the sea.

The whirling, soft, and tender sound
That meant I knew not what of lore, -
I dream its mystery now no more:
Its reckless meaning I have found.

O shell! I held thee to my ears
When I was young, and smiled with pride
To stand aglow at marvel's side!
O world, thy voice is wild with tears!

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop was an American Roman Catholic nun and social worker. Born on May 20, 1851, in Lenox, Massachusetts, she was the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the famous novelist. After a failed marriage, Lathrop turned towards religious life and dedicated herself to caring for those with incurable cancer. She founded the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, and the community grew to operate several homes for cancer patients. She passed away on July 9, 1926.

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

Unloved.

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Simple Poetry

Lost Reality.

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Simple Poetry

The Clock's Song.

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Simple Poetry

A Waltz.

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, 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

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

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

The World-Child

At times I am the mother of the world;
And mine seem all its sorrows, and its fears.
That rose, which in each mother-heart is curled,
    The rose of pity, opens with my tears,
And, waking in the night, I lie and hark
    To the lone sobbing, and the wild alarms,
Of my World-child, a wailing in the dark:
    The child I fain would shelter in my arms.
I call to it (as from another room
    A mother calls, what time she cannot go):
'Sleep well, dear world; Love hides behind this gloom.
    There is no need for wakefulness or woe,
The long, long night is almost past and gone,
The day is near.'    And yet the world weeps on.

Again I follow it, throughout the day.
    With anxious eyes I see it trip and fall,
And hurt itself in many a foolish way:
    Ch...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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

I Am The World

I am the song, that rests upon the cloud;
            I am the sun:
I am the dawn, the day, the hiding shroud,
            When dusk is done.

I am the changing colours of the tree;
            The flower uncurled:
I am the melancholy of the sea;
            I am the world.

The other souls that, passing in their place,
            Each in their groove;
Out-stretching hands that chain me and embrace,
            Speak and reprove.

O atom of that law, by which the earth
            Is poised and whirled;
Behold! you hurrying with the crowd assert
            You are the world.

Am I not one with all the things that be
            Warm in the sun?
All that my ears can hear, or eyes can see,
            Till all be done.

Dora Sigerson Shorter