There is a beach upon a western shore
Which those who know it call the Beach of Shells,
For there the secret tides conspire to pour

Yearly a haryest raised in the deep-sea swells,
The empty houses of bright water-things,
In heaps of whorls and cones and fluted bells.

These hither a certain drift of current brings,
And on a bayed shelf in the rock bestows
Year after year their softly shining rings

Of lavender and pearl, umber and rose,
Of iridescent sheen, dim-shaded dun,
Of red that smoulders and of red that glows,

To lie there glistening beneath the sun,
Beside the shouting or the singing sea,
All beautiful, and empty every one.

Who knows how long ocean's fertility
Hath borne this harvest or how many tides
Have swept it to this blank tranquillity

From where Ijve water washes the rock's sides
On which these generations lived and grew
And where even now their enduring race abides?

For still, unseen beneath the covering blue,
Their children make new houses, ring on ring,
That'hither shall be swept in season due,

And each a senseless, empty, lovely thing.
But where these nations of the sea are laid,
The passer-by who pauses, wondering

At how and when the Beach of Shells was made,
Finds but few perfect, as when on their rock
Each by its maker was inhabited.

The tide that threw them here with careless shock
Has cracked the delicate walls, and passing feet
Spread ruin every day with kick and knock,

And winter's frosts have worked, and summer's heat,
To lay the intricate, vacant chambers bare,
Where once the creature lived and found life sweet.

Would you know more than this, then kneel down there
And dig a little with exploring hand,
Finding more fragments still in every layer.

Till last you find the shells all ground to sand.