Hast thou heard of a shell on the margin of ocean,
Whose pearly recesses the echoes still keep,
Of the music it caught when, with tremulous motion,
It joined in the concert poured forth by the deep?
And fables have told us when far inland carried,
To the waste sandy desert and dark-ivyed cave,
In its musical chambers some murmurs have tarried,
It learnt long before of the wind and the wave.
Oh! thus should our spirits, which bear many a token
They are not of earth, but are exiles while here,
Preserve in their banishment, pure and unbroken,
Some sweet treasured notes of their own native sphere.
Though the dark clouds of sin may at times hover o’er us,
And the discords of earth may their melody mar;
Yet to spirits redeemed some faint notes of that chorus
Which is born of the blest will be brought from afar!