  There lay upon the ocean’s shore What once a tortoise served to cover. A year and more, with rush and roar, The surf had rolled it over, Had played with it and flung it by, As wind and weather might decide it, Cheap burial might provide it. It rested there to bleach or tan, The rains had soaked, the suns had burned it; With many a ban the fisherman Had stumbled o’er and spurned it; And there the fisher girl would stay, Conjecturing with her brother How in their play the poor estray Might serve some use or other. So there it lay, through wet and dry, As empty as the last new sonnet, Till by and by came Mercury, And, having mused upon it, “Why, here,” cried he, “the thing of things In shape, material, and dimensions! Give it but strings, and lo, it sings, A wonderful invention!” So said, so done; the chords he strained, And, as his fingers o’er them hovered, The shell disdained a soul had gained, The lyre had been discovered. O empty world that round us lies, Dead shell, of soul and thought forsaken, Brought we but eyes like Mercury’s, In thee what songs should waken! A small sailing boat in rough seas near a lighthouse
Le SÉnÉschal (modern). Carbon by Braun, Clement & Co. Storm King. |
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