| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| The Shell |
| | | Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron (1809–92) |
| | | | | From “Maud” |
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| SEE what a lovely shell, | |
| Small and pure as a pearl, | |
| Lying close to my foot, | |
| Frail, but a work divine, | |
| Made so fairily well | 5 |
| With delicate spire and whorl, | |
| How exquisitely minute, | |
| A miracle of design! | |
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| What is it? a learned man | |
| Could give it a clumsy name. | 10 |
| Let him name it who can, | |
| The beauty would be the same. | |
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| The tiny cell is forlorn, | |
| Void of the little living will | |
| That made it stir on the shore. | 15 |
| Did he stand at the diamond door | |
| Of his house in a rainbow frill? | |
| Did he push, when he was uncurl’d, | |
| A golden foot or a fairy horn | |
| Thro’ his dim water-world? | 20 |
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| Slight, to be crush’d with a tap | |
| Of my finger-nail on the sand, | |
| Small, but a work divine, | |
| Frail, but of force to withstand, | |
| Year upon year, the shock | 25 |
| Of cataract seas that snap | |
| The three-decker’s oaken spine | |
| Athwart the ledges of rock, | |
| Here on the Breton strand! | |
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