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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (August 29, 1809 – October 7, 1894) was an American physician, poet, professor, lecturer, and author based in Boston. He was surrounded by Boston's literary elite and his close friends included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell. He was a member of the Fireside Poets, and these poets were among the first Americans to build substantial popularity in Europe. His peers acclaimed him as one of the best writers of the day. Holmes became known as a poet who expressed the benefits of loyalty and trust at serious gatherings, as well as one who showed wit at festivities and celebrations.
On June 15, 1840, Holmes married Amelia Lee Jackson and they had three children, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Amelia Jackson Holmes and Edward Jackson Holmes. Holmes in particular believed poetry had "the power of transfiguring the experiences and shows of life into an aspect which comes from the imagination and kindles that of others." Edwin Percy Whipple for one considered Holmes to be "a poet of sentiment and passion. He was an outspoken critic of over-sentimental Transcendentalist and Romantic poetry, which often slipped into sentimentality when writing his occasional poetry, but he was able to balance such emotional excess with humor. Among his famous poems and works were The Old Man Dreams, The Deacon's Masterpiece and The Chambered Nautilus.
Poems by Holmes, along with those by the other Fireside or Schoolroom Poets, were often required to be memorized by schoolchildren. Although learning by rote recitation began fading out by the 1890s, these poets nevertheless remained fixed as ideal New England poets. As we continue to celebrate National Poetry Month, we want to share the following poem, The Chambered Nautilus, by Oliver Wendell Holmes.
The Chambered Nautilus
By 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 the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the 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 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:—
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 life’s unresting sea!
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