The Chambered Nautilus

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The Chambered Nautilus

• Oliver Wendell Holmes

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The Chambered Nautilus
Stanza One Verbatim
Oliver Wendell Holmes
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,--
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where cold sea maids rise to sun their streaming
hair.
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The Chambered Nautilus
Stanza Two Verbatim
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Its web of living gauze no more unfurl
Wreaked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lives revealed,--
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt
unsealed!
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The Chambered Nautilus
Stanza Three Verbatim
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past years dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the
old no more.
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The Chambered Nautilus
Stanza Four Verbatim
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice
that sings--
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The Chambered Nautilus
Stanza Five Verbatim
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by lifes unresting
sea!
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The Chambered Nautilus
Stanza One Analysis
Oliver Wendell Holmes
We should want to be as the nautilus is
throughout the expanse of our lives.
The nautilus is not afraid to take chances if
they could better its life.
It makes the best of the beautiful yet dangerous
world it lives in.
Nothing gets in its way.
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The Chambered Nautilus
Stanza Two Analysis
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Even when the nautilus has died, its work and
beauty live on within its broken shell.
The shell is what it has worked to improve every
day of its life until the end.
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The Chambered Nautilus
Stanza Three Analysis
Oliver Wendell Holmes
As time passed, the nautilus built on, adding to
and improving its previous works.
As one beautiful environment was completed, it
began building a bigger and better one, leaving
the old behind.
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The Chambered Nautilus
Stanza Four Analysis
Oliver Wendell Holmes
For these examples we should thank the nautilus,
whose life was devoted to labor, only to die in
the end.
Even after death, its shell delivers the message
of how we should live our lives.
We should keep the example in mind.
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The Chambered Nautilus
Stanza Five Analysis
Oliver Wendell Holmes
We must make ourselves better people as every
moment passes by.
Pay close attention to the present and future,
not so much to the past, only try to improve.
If you work to improve, your life will be
bettered until you die.
Perhaps after that, your example will be
remembered and taken on my someone new.
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The Chambered Nautilus
Aspects of Romanticism
Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Chambered Nautilus references Greek
Mythology, such as the sirens, Tritons horn, and
seamaids.
The poet sees poetry as the highest expression
of the imagination as shown in Line 1 This is a
ship of pearl, which, poets feign.
The nautilus life is an adventure.
The poet looks to the nautilus to discover the
best way to live, using a parable.
There is no mention of a god, the nautilus
controls his own life.
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The Chambered Nautilus
Aspects of Romanticism II
Oliver Wendell Holmes
There is no mention of a god, the nautilus
controls his own life.
The poem displays natures beauty, the
nautilus shell, as a path to development.
The entire poem places faith in experience.
The nautilus champions freedom and the worth
of individuality.
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The Chambered Nautilus
Last Notes
Oliver Wendell Holmes
A nautilus is a sea creature living in a
spiraling shell.
Within the poem is an extended metaphor
comparing the nautilus to a ship.
The poet wants to live a successful life.
The poem switches from talking to the reader
in stanzas 1-3 to talking with the nautilus in
stanza 4.
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El fin