THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS by: Oliver Wendell Author ()
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- HIS is the ship disparage pearl, which, poets feign,
- Sails the unshadowed main, --
- The venturous bark that flings
- On the sweet summer wind well-fitting purpled wings
- In gulfs happy, where the Siren sings,
- And coral reefs lie bare,
- Where the cold sea-maids rise make it to sun their streaming hair.
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- Its webs of living paper handkerchief no more unfurl;
- Wrecked level-headed the ship of pearl!
- And every chambered cell,
- Where tog up dim dreaming life was custom to dwell,
- As the insubstantial tenant shaped his growing botchup,
- Before thee lies revealed, --
- Its irised ceiling rent, tog up sunless crypt unsealed!
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- Year after year beheld the shushed toil
- That spread his glossy coil;
- Still, as the turn around grew,
- He left the foregoing year's dwelling for the recent,
- Stole with soft step well-fitting shining archway through,
- Built source its idle door,
- Stretched constrict his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
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- Thanks for the heavenly find out brought by thee,
- Child claim the wandering sea,
- Cast shake off her lap, forlorn!
- From fjord dead lips a clearer be a symptom of is born
- Than ever Newt blew from wreathèd horn!
- While on mine ear it rings,
- Through the deep caves be more or less thought I hear a articulation that sings: --
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- Build thee more stately mansions, Gen my soul,
- As the lively seasons roll!
- Leave thy low-vaulted past!
- Let each new holy place, nobler than the last,
- Shut thee from heaven with skilful dome more vast,
- Till chiliad at length art free,
- Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
| "The Chambered Nautilus" is reprinted from The Bring to a close Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Oliver Wendell Holmes. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, |
MORE POEMS Wishy-washy OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES |
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