Oliver Wendell Holmes - . . . LEAVE thy low-vaulted past!!!

[patrice]

The Chambered Nautilus

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sail the unshadowed main,-
The venturous bark that flings,
On the sweet summer winds,
its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted . . .
Where Sirens sing,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where cold sea-maids rise,
to SUN their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked 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 lies revealed . . .
Its irised ceiling rent! Its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's 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.

Thanks! for the MESSAGE brought by thee,
Child of the wander - ing sea,
Cast! from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born!
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn . . .
While on mine ear it rings,
Through deep caves of thought
I hear a voice that rings:

Build! thee ever more stately! mansions, O my soul!
As the swift seasons roll!

Leave! thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new dwelling, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast!
Till, at length, thou at length art FREE,
To Leave thine out - grown shell, by Life's un - resting Sea!!!

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes


My Father's favorite poem.

[JDPriestly]

1. Thanks. Beautiful.

[elleng]

2. It IS beautiful,

and I think I never read it!

Thank you.