The Shell
From “Gebir,” Book I.
I AM not daunted, no; I will engage.
But first, said she, what wager will you lay?
A sheep, I answered, add whate’er you will.
I cannot, she replied, make that return:
Our hided vessels in their pitchy round
Seldom, unless from rapine, hold a sheep.
But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue
Within, and they that lustre have imbibed
In the Sun’s palace-porch, where when unyoked
His chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave:
Shake one and it awakens, then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.