Burns.
A SEA-SHELL.
See what a lovely shell,
Small and pure as a pearl,
Lying close to my foot.
Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairily well
With delicate spire and whorl.
How exquisitely minute
A miracle of design!
The tiny cell is forlorn,
Void of the little living will
That made it stir on the shore.
Did he stand at the diamond door
Of his house in a rainbow frill?
Did he push when he was uncurled,
A golden foot or a fairy horn
Through his dim water-world?
Slight, to be crushed with a tap
Of my finger-nail on the sand;
Small, but a work divine:
Frail, but of force to withstand,
Year upon year, the shock
Of cataract seas that snap
The three-decker's oaken spine,
Athwart the ledges of rock,
Here on the Breton strand.
Alfred Tennyson.