As pearls, we're told, that fondling doves
Have played with, wear a smoother whiteness.
An early reference to the gem is found in his "Odes of Anacreon" No. XXII:
Or even those envious pearls that show
So faintly round that neck of snow—
If this ode was really written by Anacreon, that poet must have been more familiar with pearls than some later Grecian writers. A similar idea quite as beautifully expressed occurs in "The Loves of the Angels."
Then too the pearl from out its shell
Unsightly, in the sunless sea,
(As 'twere a spirit, forced to dwell