PEARLS. 229 



Thus Drummond sings, — 



" With open shells in seas, on heavenly dew, 



A shining- oyster lusciously doth feed ; 



And then the birth of that ethereal seed 

 Shows, when conceived, if skies look dark or blue : 

 Pearls then, are orient-framed, and fair in form, 



If heavens in their conception do look clear ; 

 But if they thunder, or do threat a storm, 



They sadly dark and cloudy do appear." 



And Filicaja, an Italian poet, has moralized the tale 

 sweetly : — 



THE PEARL. 



"As from its sedgy bed the ocean-shell 



Mounts to the surface, and the lucid dew 

 Drinks, — thus transmitting to its inmost cell 



The fertile juice that rears the pearl to view, 

 Fountain of life ! so mounts my soul to thee ! 

 To drink the beams that from thy presence well, 

 And quench its thirst in that celestial sea. 

 But as the pearl, though in the shell it lies, 

 Springs from the light, fair daughter of the skies, 

 So are not mine these strains, though mine they seem ; 

 'Tis thou inspir'st me — as I touch the theme, 

 Thou giv'st the accents sound — from thee alone they rise.* 



But pearls, as Mr. Gray justly observes, are merely the 

 internal nacred coat of the shell, which has been forced 

 by some extraneous cause to assume a spherical form. They 



" ' Alas ! ' the limpid moisture sighed, 

 As it clave the yielding air ; 

 ' And must I perish in that salt tide, 



And die unregarded there? 

 Hard is my fate to be thus riven 

 From my glorious place 'mid the blue of heaven ! ' 



" Down, down it fell ; but ere the tide 

 Touch'd the bright sand of the shore, 

 An oyster that thirsted, opened wide 



Its pearl-encrusted door ; 

 And by the soft breathing of the air, 

 The limpid drop was wafted there. 



" Time passed — and then a fisher came, 



And from that oyster drew 

 A precious prize, whose wondrous fame 



Through many a region flew ; 

 The rain-drop had become a gem, 

 To deck a monarch's diadem ! " 



* Translated by Dr. J. M. Good in his Trans, of the Book of Job, p. 377 



