And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow:

From coral rocks the sea-plants lift Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow;

The water is calm and still below, For the winds and the waves are absent there, And the sands are bright as the stars that glow

In the motionless fields of upper air: There with its waving blade of green,

The sea-flag streams through the silent water,

And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen

To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter:

There with a light and easy motion The fan coral sweeps through the clear deep sea;

And the yellow and scarlet tufts of

ocean

Are bending like corn on the upland
lea;
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid those bowers of

stone.