Explore "A Minor Poet" by Stephen Vincent Benet on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I am a shell. From me you shall not hear / The splendid tramplings of insistent drums, / The orbed gold of the viol's voice that comes, / Heavy with radiance, languorous and clear.
Yet, if you hold me close against the ear, / A dim, far whisper rises clamorously, / The thunderous beat and passion of the sea, / The slow surge of the tides that drown the mere.
Others with subtle hands may pluck the strings, / Making even Love in music audible, / And earth one glory. I am but a shell / That moves, not of itself, and moving sings; / Leaving a fragrance, faint as wine new-shed, / A tremulous murmur from great days long dead.