Sea-shell, Sea-shell,
Sing me a song, oh! Please!
A song of ships, and [of]1 sailormen,
[And]2 parrots, and tropical trees;
Of islands lost in the Spanish Main,
Which no man ever may [find]3 again,
Of fishes and corals under the waves,
And seahorses stabled in great green caves.
[Oh,]4 Sea-shell, Sea-shell,
Sing of the things you know so well.

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View original text (without footnotes)
¹ omitted by Engel.
² Grier: "of"
³ Grier: "see"
⁴ omitted by Grier.

Text Authorship:

• by Amy Lowell (1874 - 1925), appears in A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass, first published 1912 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Carl Engel (1883 - 1944), "Sea-shell", published 1911, copyright © 1911 [ medium voice and piano ], from Two Lyrics by Amy Lowell  [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Lita Grier , "The seashell", 1999, from 5 Songs For Children, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Felix Harold White (1884 - 1945), "Sea Shell", published 1926 [ medium voice or low voice, piano ] [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 10
Word count: 59