Envoi

Diving for Pearls is now closed. No further entries will be added to it, but the quotations gathered will stay here, and can be browsed by author or category.

A Song to David

Precious the bounteous widow’s mite;
And precious, for extreme delight,
The largesse from the churl:
Precious the ruby’s blushing blaze,
And alba’s blest imperial rays,
And pure cerulean pearl.

Precious the pentitential tear …

Christopher Smart, ‘A Song to David’ (1763), stanza (and line)

Cheltenham & Gloucester

One of a series of Cheltenham & Gloucester advertisements from the 1990s/200s, featuring a boy pearl diver. The series was initiated in 1995, filmed by underwater camera specialist Mike Portelly.

The Man and the Flea

Whether on earth, in air, or main,
Sure ev’ry thing alive is vain!
Does not the hawk all fowls survey,
As destin’d only for his prey?
And do not tyrants, prouder things,
Think men were born for slaves to kings?
When the crab views the pearly strands,
Or Tagus bright with golden sands,
Or crawls beside the coral grove,
And hears the ocean roll above,
“Nature is too profuse,” says he,
“Who gave all these to pleasure me!”
When bord’ring pinks and roses bloom,
And ev’ry garden breathes perfume,
When peaches glow with sunny dyes
Like Laura’s cheek when blushes rise,
When with huge figs the branches bend,
When clusters from the vine depend,
The snail looks round on flow’r and tree,
And cries, “All these were made for me!”

John Gay, Fable XLIX: The Man and the Flea (1727), first stanza