Shells

Driven from the sea by calloused tides, 
How prettily they lie 
Stretched out in rows upon my shelf! 
I give each shell a name 

And feelings to replace it's emptiness - 
Poor shells, so dispossessed 
From the loud, possessive, passionate sea! - 
That I come to pick up 

By chance along a long and sandy shore, 
Fragments of a coral dynasty 
Now banished and uncoiled, then flung 
Through the thought-spinning years.