THE CAPTAIN'S DAUGHTER 49 3. What does the fact that they had to "cut away the mast" indicate? 4. Explain "hungry sea." 5. Explain "the breakers talked of Death." 6. Point out those things that show that the hearts of the passengers had failed them. 7. Point out evidences that even the stout-hearted captain lost all hope. 8. Why "staggered"? 9. What shows the simple faith of the little daughter? 10. What effect did it have on the mood of those on board? 11. What was the final outcome? 12. What simple truth is found in this poem? REFERENCES HOOD: I Remember, I Remember. TENNYSON: Crossing the Bar. MRS. BROWNING: He Giveth His Beloved Sleep. HEMANS: Casabianca. PROCTER: The Sea. SOUTHEY: The Inchcape Rock. COWPER: The Castaways. EMMA HART WILLARD: Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep. BRAINARD: The Deep. GEORGE CABOT LODGE: A Song of the Wave. LONGFELLOW: The Wreck of the Hesperus. CHARLOTTE P. STETSON: The Rock and the Sea. FRANCIS FREELING BRODERIP: The Hungry Sea. DIAMOND: The Mariner's Dream. KINGSLEY: The Three Fishers. CLOUGH: As Ships Becalmed. KIPLING: The Bell-Buoy. DULCKEN: The Sea-Captain's Farewell to His Child. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS "BOOKE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES OOKED for immortality" was the verdict of Whittier when he first read this exquisite poem. Holmes himself prized this poem as one of the best he had written. It appeared in the fourth of the series of Autocrat of the Breakfast Table papers, and was first published in the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1858. Holmes there explained the origin of the poem as follows: "I will read you a few lines, if you do not object, suggested by looking at a section of one of these chambered shells, to which is given the name of Pearly Nautilus. We need not trouble ourselves between this and the Paper Nautilus, the Argonauta of the ancients. The name 'Argonauta' applied to both shows that each has long been compared to a ship, as you may see more fully in Webster's Dictionary or the 'Encyclopædia' to which he refers. If you will look into Roget's Bridgewater Treatise, you will find a figure of one of these shells and a section of it. The last will show you the series of enlarging compartments successively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, which is built in a widening spiral. Can you find a lesson in this?" The International Cyclopædia says, "The shell is spiral, the spire not at all elevated; and thus in external form resembles the form of many species of snail; but internally, it is camerated, or divided into chambers, by THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 51 transverse curved partitions of shelly matter. In a very young state this structure does not exist; but as the animal increases in size it deserts its first habitation, and so proceeds from one to another still larger, occupying the outermost only, but retaining a connection with all by means of a membranous tube (siphuncle), which passes through the center of each partition." On one occasion a little girl friend visited Dr Holmes His study contained many of these beautiful sea-shells, and in order to explain the poem fully to his little friend he sawed one of the shells in two and used a section to illustrate and explain the poem fully to her. Like the poet, we are interested, not so much in the structure and growth of the nautilus as in the profound meanings of life of which the poet makes the shell a symbol. In the first stanza of the poem, the author relates what poets have fancied about the nautilus. The second pictures the lifeless shell as it lies before the poet. The toiling, growing life which once occupied the now empty dwelling is suggested in the third stanza. The fourth is a rhapsody of thanksgiving for the "heavenly message," which is given voice in the closing stanza, which becomes the prayer of every aspiring soul. From this time forth every soul shall have the right to pass through its own stages of development. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 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, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 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 While on mine ear it rings, 53 Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea NOTES 1. Ship of pearl. So called because fabulously supposed to be furnished with a membrane which it used as a sail. 2. Siren. A sea-nymph said to frequent an island near the coast of Italy, and to sing with such sweetness as to draw the listening mariners to destruction on the rocks. 3. Sea-maids. Mermaids, or fabled inhabitants of the sea, half maid and half fish, generally represented with mirrors and streaming hair. 4. Irised. Iris was the goddess of the rainbow. The inner part of the shell is rainbow hued. 5. Crypt. A dark vault partly or wholly underground. 6. Triton. Son of Neptune, god of the sea. Triton was represented as half man and half fish, and the roaring of the sea was believed by the Greeks to be caused by the blowing of his horn, or spiral conch shell. 7. Look up carefully all other words and expressions not clear. SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES 1. What fabled fancies are revealed by the poets? 2. To what does "living gauze" refer? 3. Why is the "ship of pearl" spoken of as "wrecked"? 4. Why "dim dreaming life," "frail tenant"? |