PEARLS IN LITERATURE
charms
of woman, or to lift her to higher esteem by holding her, for
preciousness, above the gem. Beyond all other things most lovely, only
woman was lovelier yet. In "To weave a Garland for the Rose," he
writes:
Where is the pearl whose orient lustre Would not, beside thee, look less bright?
And in one of the "Odes to Nea," he expresses the jealous regard of love thus:
If I were yonder conch of gold
And thou the pearl within it placed,
I would not let an eye behold
The sacred gem my arms embraced.
Of
the threads in which the woof of "The Genius of Harmony " is woven,
there is one that sings thus to the passing of the shuttle:
To the small rill, that weeps along Murmuring o'er beds of pearl.
Betraying
as he did so frequently in his poems, such a high regard for the pearl,
it is somewhat curious that the gem was used descriptively in
connection with himself. N. P. Willis, describing Thomas Moore as he
met him at Lady Blessington's said of him, "His forehead shines with
the lustre and smooth polish of a pearl."
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