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 Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the news 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 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, 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”? 5. Explain "stole with soft step." 6. What characteristic of the nautilus is most emphasized in stanza three? 7. Why does the poet break into a song of thanksgiving before giving the "heavenly message"? 8. Explain how a clear note could be born from dead lips. 9. In a word, what is the message of the sea-shell? 10. Explain "more stately mansions" and "low-vaulted past used here. 11. What does "each new temple" symbolize? 12. What is the meaning of "shut thee from heaven"? 13. Explain "till thou at length art free." 14. Memorize the last stanza. as 15. What then is the universal note sounded to the world through the poet's soul? REFERENCES FIELD: The Wanderer. TENNYSON: The Shell. LONGFELLOW: Excelsior. Ladder of St. Augustine. ARNOLD: Self-Dependence. HARTLEY COLERIDGE: To the Nautilus. LOWELL: The Finding of the Lyre. C. H. WEBB: With a Nantucket Shell. EUGENE LEE HAMILTON: Sea-Shell Murmurs. OLD OCEAN Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll! THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE ALFRED TENNYSON THIS poem celebrates a famous charge at Balaklava in the Crimean War, October 25, 1854. The Russian army had advanced to threaten Balaklava, the base of supplies of the allied French, English, and Turkish forces. The first attack of Russian cavalry was repelled, and at about eleven o'clock, the Light Brigade, consisting of 673 men, was ordered to charge a Russian battery a mile and a half away. The order was evidently an error, but it was obeyed with splendid gallantry and matchless bravery on the part of the British soldiers, only 195 surviving the merciless storm of shot and shell. Tennyson got the suggestion for this poem in the report of the War Correspondent of the London Times, printed November 14, 1854, and in the editorial published the day before. The editorial is in part as follows: "The whole brigade advanced at a trot for more than a mile, down a valley, with a murderous flank fire of Minie muskets and shells from the hills on both sides. It charged batteries, took guns, sabered the gunners, and charged the Russian cavalry beyond; but, being attacked by cavalry in front and rear, it had to cut its way through them, and return through the same cavalry and the same fire. The British soldier will do his duty, even to certain death, and is not paralyzed by feeling that he is the victim of some hideous blunder. Splendid as the event was on the Alma (brilliant Russian defeat in the same campaign in September) yet that rugged ascent was scarcely so glorious as the progress of the cavalry through and through that valley of death, with a murderous fire, not only in front, but on both sides, above, and even in the rear." Tennyson wrote this poem in a few minutes on December 2, 1854. In August of the following year, hearing that the soldiers before Sebastopol were enthusiastic over his war poem, he had a thousand copies printed on separate quarto sheets, and sent them out to the soldiers of the Crimea with his compliments, for he wanted them, as he said in a note printed with the poem, "to know that those who sit at home love and honor them." THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death "Forward the Light Brigade !" Some one had blunder'd; Rode the six hundred. |