Pearls

Baroque, but beautiful, between the lanes,
  The valves of nacre of a mussel-shell,
  Behold, a pearl! shaped like the burnished bell
  Of some strange blossom that long afternoons
  Of summer coax to open: all the moon's
  Chaste lustre in it; hues that only dwell
  With purity.... It takes me, like a spell,
  Back to a day when, whistling truant tunes,
  A barefoot boy I waded 'mid the rocks,
  Searching for shells deep in the creek's slow swirl,
  Unconscious of the pearls that 'round me lay:
  While, 'mid wild-roses,--all her tomboy locks
  Blond-blowing,--stood, unnoticed then, a girl,
  My sweetheart once, the pearl I flung away.