Landor complained that Wordsworth stole his shell, and "pounded and flattened it in his marsh" of "The Excursion":
"I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell;
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy; for from within were heard
Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea."
Byron acknowledged his obligations to "Gebir" for his lines in "The Island," beginning,—
"The Ocean scarce spake louder with his swell,
Than breathes his mimic murmurer in the shell."
And now, as we near the close of the century which And as now reinterpreted by Lee-Hamilton."Gebir" initiated, Eugene Lee-Hamilton devotes one of his remarkable sonnets to this same murmur of the shell, and I cannot find a more poetic, more impassioned recognition of the veil which modern doubt is drawing between our saddened eyes and the beautiful pathetic fallacy:—
"The hollow sea-shell which for years hath stood
On dusty shelves, when held against the ear
Proclaims its stormy parent; and we hear
The faint far murmur of the breaking flood.
We hear the sea. The sea? It is the blood
In our own veins, impetuous and near,
And pulses keeping pace with hope and fear
