Agates Poem by Martin Farquhar Tupper

Quartz-flowers, whether mossy starred or lined,
Translucent agates! by the ebbing sea
How often have I lingered hopefully,
Among the beach your bubbling blooms to find:
And you are memoried in my tranquil mind
With wild Glen Farg, with Struie's quarried hill,
With Ochil-side, where in each fresh-ploughed field
I gathered up a harvest richer still
To my fond thought than all that barley yield:
And after, when my lapidary's skill
Has opened to the sunshine of to-day
Your chalcedonic beauties, fair and bright,
Hitherto since Man's birth-hour seal'd in night,
You seem more precious than I care to say.