 | Songs and ballads by Samuel Lover |  |
THE DEEP-SEA SHELL.
“Sad one, sighing along the shore,
Why to thine ear that sea shell keep?”
“Because it telleth of days of yore—
Of joys that I knew within the deep.”
A Syren, there betraying
With songs and softest saying,
My soul with vows of love beguil'd—
Oh how I lov'd that sea-nymph wild!
But she was false—ah, false as fair,
And I, abandon'd to despair;
The shell I stole from out the deep,
Some mem'ry of my joy to keep;
And though the shell
Rings Pleasure's knell,
Yet still 'tis dear
Tho' sad, to hear
The sound of the deep-sea shell.”
Why to thine ear that sea shell keep?”
“Because it telleth of days of yore—
Of joys that I knew within the deep.”
A Syren, there betraying
With songs and softest saying,
My soul with vows of love beguil'd—
Oh how I lov'd that sea-nymph wild!
But she was false—ah, false as fair,
And I, abandon'd to despair;
204
Some mem'ry of my joy to keep;
And though the shell
Rings Pleasure's knell,
Yet still 'tis dear
Tho' sad, to hear
The sound of the deep-sea shell.”
Thus mortals listen to Mem'ry's shell,
Stolen of Time from his silent deep;
And Nature yields to the murmuring spell,
Tho' the sad music may make us weep.
For, in Memory's deep are lying
Past joys, too fast in flying,
And many a “thought too deep for tears,”
And blighted hopes of former years:
Yet, mingled thus, of grief and joy
Oh, who the memory would destroy?—
Of all the bliss and pain we've met,
Oh, where's the heart that would forget?
For tho' the shell
Rings Pleasure's knell,
Yet still 'tis dear
Tho' sad, to hear
The sound of Memory's shell.
Stolen of Time from his silent deep;
And Nature yields to the murmuring spell,
Tho' the sad music may make us weep.
For, in Memory's deep are lying
Past joys, too fast in flying,
And many a “thought too deep for tears,”
And blighted hopes of former years:
Yet, mingled thus, of grief and joy
Oh, who the memory would destroy?—
Of all the bliss and pain we've met,
Oh, where's the heart that would forget?
For tho' the shell
Rings Pleasure's knell,
Yet still 'tis dear
Tho' sad, to hear
The sound of Memory's shell.
| Songs and ballads by Samuel Lover | |