Thomas Edward Brown

Scarlett Rocks

I THOUGHT of life, the outer and the inner,	
    As I was walking by the sea:	
How vague, unshapen this, and that, though thinner,	
    Yet hard and clear in its rigidity.	
Then took I up the fragment of a shell,
    And saw its accurate loveliness,	
And searched its filmy lines, its pearly cell,	
    And all that keen contention to express	
A finite thought. And then I recognised	
    God’s working in the shell from root to rim,
And said:—“He works till He has realised—	
    O Heaven! if I could only work like Him!”