To the Virginian Voyage

Britons, you stay too long,
Quickly aboard bestow you,
And with a merry Gale
Swell you stretch’d Sayle,
With Vowes as strong,
As the Winds that blow you.

Your course securely steere,
West and by South forth keepe,
Rocks, Lee-shores, nor Shoales,
When EOLUS scowles,
You neede not feare,
So absolute the Deepe.

And cheerfully at Sea,
Successe you still intice,
To get the Pearle and Gold,
And ours to hold,
VIRGINIA,
Earth’s onely Paradise.

Michael Drayton, ‘To the Virginian Voyage’ (1619)

Contemplations

There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowels of the earth, many a fair pearl laid up in the bosom of the sea, that never was seen, nor ever shall be.

Bishop Joseph Hall, Contemplations (Book Four, The Veil of Moses) (1615)

I started Early – Took my Dog -

I started Early – Took my Dog -
And visited the Sea -
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me -

And Frigates – in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands -
Presuming Me to be a Mouse -
Aground – upon the Sands -

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide
Went past my simply Shoe -
And past my Apron – and my belt
And past my Bodice – too -

And made as He would eat me up -
As wholly as a Dew
Upon a Dandelion’s Sleeve -
And then – I started – too -

And He – He followed – close behind -
I felt His Silver Heel
Upon my Ankle – Then my Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl -

Until We met the Solid Town -
No One He seemed to know -
And bowing – with a Mighty look -
At me – The Sea withdrew -

Emily Dickinson, ‘I started Early – Took my Dog’ (c.1862)

Sunken Gold

In dim green depths rot ingot-laden ships;
And gold doubloons, that from the drowned hand fell,
Lie nestled in the ocean-flower’s bell
With love’s old gifts, once kissed by long-drowned lips.
And round some wrought gold cup the sea-grass whips,
And hides lost pearls, near pearls still in their shell,
Where sea-weed forests fill each ocean dell
And seek dim twilight with their restless tips.
So lie the wasted gifts, the long-lost hopes,
Beneath the now hushed surface of myself,
In lonelier depths than where the diver gropes;
They lie deep, deep; but I at times behold
In doubtful glimpses, on some reefy shelf,
The gleam of irrecoverable gold.

Eugene Lee-Hamilton, ‘Sunken Gold’ (1884)

Introductory Lectures on Political Economy

It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them; but on the contrary, men dive for them because they fetch a high price.

Richard Whately, Introductory Lectures on Political Economy (1832).

Richard Whately was an English philosopher and theologian, also Archbishop of Dublin.

Doctor Faustus

How am I glutted with conceit of this!
Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,
Resolve me of all ambiguities,
Perform what desperate enterprise I will?
I’ll have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,
And search all corners of the new-found world
For pleasant fruits and princely delicates.

Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (1592?), Act I, Scene i.

Words spoken by Faustus. The play was not published until 1604. Its earliest known peformance is 1594, but Marlowe was killed in 1593 and there is disagreement over the year in which the play is likely to have been written.

Tell me you wandering Spirits

Go search the Vallies, pluck up every Rose,
You’ll finde a scent, a blush of her in those:
Fish, fish, for Pearle, or Corrall, there you’ll see
How orientall all her Colours be;
Go call the Echoes to your ayde, and cry,
Cloris, Cloris, for that’s her name for whom I died.

Anon., ‘Tell me you wandering Spirits’ (1652), second verse of three.

Included in the Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse (1934), which credits it as being published originally in J. Payford, Musicall Ayres, 1652.

An Ode in the praise of Sack

Has fortune made thee poor, dost thou desire
To heap up glorious mire?
Come to this stream where every drop’s a Pearl
Might buy an Earl:
Drench thy selfe soundly here and thou shalt rise
Richer than both the ‘Indies.
So may’st thou still enjoy with full content
Midas his wish without his punishment.

Anon., ‘An Ode in the praise of Sack’ (1656), seventh verse of eight.

Included in the Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse (1934), which credits it as being published originally in Parnassus Biceps, 1656.

Another Pearl

Let’s walk to the sound of distant shells
To a place where life would have no end
You’d be the mother of my pearls
If you follow me into my world
Back to the place where we’d be free
Where I’d love you and you’d love me
This is the colour of my world
Watch me find another pearl

Badly Drawn Boy (Damon Gough), ‘Another Pearl’ (2000), last verse.

From the album ‘The Hour of Bewilderbeast’.

A Drop fell on the Apple Tree

A Drop fell on the Apple Tree -
Another – on the Roof -
A Half a Dozen kissed the Eaves -
And made the Gables laugh -

A few went out to help the Brook
That went to help the Sea -
Myself conjectured were they Pearls -
What Necklaces could be -

The Dust replaced, in Hoisted Roads -
The Birds jocoser sung -
The Sunshine threw his Hat away -
The Bushes – spangles flung -

The Breezes brought dejected Lutes -
And bathed them in the Glee -
Then Orient showed a single Flag,
And signed the Fete away -

Emily Dickinson, ‘A Drop fell on the Apple Tree’ (c.1863)