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Poems and Pearls
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by Hafiz, Persian poet
Learn from yon orient shell to love thy foe,
And store with pearls the wound that brings thee woe.
Concerning a pearl presented by Julius Caesar to Servilia, the mother of Brutus
The spoils of nations in an ear,
Changed to the treasure of a shell.
"Iliad", XIV, 183, by Homer in his description of Juno
In three bright drops,Her glittering gems suspended from her ears.
"Odyssey", XVIII, 298
Earrings bright
With triple drops that cast a trembling light.
More poems and pearls...
Faithful Shpherdess (1611)
Orient pearls fit for a queen
Will I give thy love to win,
And a shell to keep them in.
"Edelstein und Perlen" by Ruckert
I was the Angel, who of old bowed down
From Heaven to earth and shed that tear, O Pearl,
From which thou wert frist-fashioned in thy shell.
To thee I gave that longing in thy shell,
Which guided thee and caused thee to escape,
O Pearl, from the bewitching sirens' song.
"Cleanness", an epic poem of Fourteenth Century
The pearl is praised wherever gems are seen,
though it be not the dearest by way of merchandise.
Why is the pearl so prized, save for its purity,
that wins praise for it above all white stones?
It shineth so bright; it is so round of shape;
without fault or stain; if it be truly a pearl.
Unknown
Ocean's gem, the purest
Of nature's works! What days of weary journeyings,
What sleepless nights, what toils on land and sea,
Are borne by men to gain thee!
More poems and pearls...
by Milton
Sea-girt isles,
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep.
"Paradise Lost" by Milton
The wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Show'rs on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
"Jerusalem Delivered" by Tasso
The Islanders with fleecy curls,
Whose homes are compass'd by the Arabian waves;
By whom those shells which breed the orient pearls
Are dived and fish'd for in their green sea caves.
Gray's Elegy
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear
