And is this all
You bring up from the bottom of the sea?
I watched you strip and poise and recklessly
Dive headlong down, as though to wrest the key
From the profundity
Of time's unfathomable mystery —

Only a pearl,
A little fragile globe of fleckless white,
You bring up, breathless, in your palm clutched tight,
Trinket to make a girl's eyes kindle bright —
Naught else you bring to light
From the dark chambers of old ocean's night?

Only a pearl —
All colour fused in one white glow, all sound
In breathless silence blended, all form bound
In the clean compass of the perfect round —
Beauty, in chaos drowned,
Borne to the living light from deeps profound!