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Quote#Wisdom

But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue

Quote byWalter Savage Landor · 1775–1864

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Gebir, Book I (1798). Compare: "Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed/ Mysterious union with his native sea", William Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814), Book iv. Wordsworth's prompted Landor to comment, "Poor shell! that Wordsworth so pounded and flattened in his marsh it no longer had the hoarse.

English (original)

But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue... Shake one, and it awakens; then apply Its polished lips to your attentive ear, And it remembers its august abodes, And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.

— Walter Savage Landor

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