The Sea-Shell

“Listen, darling, and tell to me
What the murmurer says to thee,
Murmuring ’twixt a song and a moan,
Changing neither tune nor tone.”

“Yes, I hear it⁠—far and faint,
Like thin-drawn prayer of drowsy saint;
like the falling of sleep on a weary brain,
When the fevered heart is quiet again.”

“By smiling lip and fixed eye,
You are hearing more than song or sigh:
The wrinkled thing has curious ways⁠—
I want to know what words it says.”

“I hear a wind on a boatless main
Sigh like the last of a vanishing pain;
On the dreaming waters dreams the moon,
But I hear no words in their murmured tune.”

“If it does not say that I love thee well,
’Tis a senseless, ill-curved, worn-out shell.
If it is not of love, why sigh or sing?
’Tis a common, mechanical, useless thing.”

“It whispers of love⁠—’tis a prophet-shell⁠—
Of a peace that comes and all shall be well;
It speaks not a word of your love to me,
But it tells me to love you eternally.”