15 20 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. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd 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, 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! Study this poem as an example of the meditative nature lyric. It is written with no apparent reference to any idea of its being sung. It is not a song in that sense. But it has the lyrical quality of emotion, in a quiet, peaceful, meditative form, somewhat after the manner of Wordsworth. It has also very clearly the lyrical quality of expressing the poet's personality. We are interested in what the writer thinks and feels about the shell, rather than in the shell itself. The thought and feeling are those of the scholar and modern scientific thinker, rather than of the simple observer of nature. The poet is first reminded of the classical fables about the nautilus. Then his thought passes to the facts of the life of the shellfish, and beautifully personifying them, he proceeds to draw his lesson, making the observed facts of the animal's life the basis of a beautiful and suggestive analogy. The form of the lyric is interesting, especially for its close connection with the progress of the thought. Notice the structure of the stanzas. The measure is iambic, with lines of varied length. First a pentameter line, then two trimeters, two pentameters, a trimeter, and an alexandrine at the end. Each of the five stanzas is devoted to a clearly defined stage of the thought: the fabled fancies about the nautilus, the shell as it lies before the poet, the life that once occupied the now empty shell, the fact that it brings us a message, and the message that it brings. A closer study will show us that each line carries a complete thought, and that the longer and shorter lines are closely adapted to the thought they have to express. Especially noteworthy is the way in which the thought of each stanza culminates to its fullest expression in the long, sonorous alexandrine line with which it closes. The familiar expedients of alliteration and assonance are used in this poem, but not in such a way as to be conspicuous. Notice especially lines 4, 11, 19. The great beauty of the poem is in the pure, ennobling thought it contains, and the impression it leaves upon the spirit of the reader. The interest of the form Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, land, Maine, 1807; died in Cam sachusetts, 1882. consists in the power with which each word and line is made to work toward this final impression. The second member of the Cambridge group, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was born in Portland, Maine. His father was a leading lawyer there, and born in Port- his choice library was one of the strong influences in the poet's early training. The first book which bridge, Mas greatly interested and so influenced him was Irving's "Sketch Book," which he read with keen delight when a boy of twelve. His college education was at Bowdoin, in Brunswick, Maine, where Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of his classmates. On his graduation in 1825, he was chosen professor of modern languages in his Alma Mater, with the suggestion that he spend some years abroad in special preparation for the duties of the chair. From May, 1826, until August, 1829, he was engaged in study and travel in Europe, and for the following five years he discharged the duties of the professorship at Bowdoin. In December, 1834, he was invited to a similar position at Harvard, and in preparation for this new work he went again to Europe. During this visit he suffered his first great sorrow a sorrow reflected in the tender poem "The Footsteps of Angels"in the death of his wife. In December, 1836, began his residence in Cambridge, which was his home for the remainder of his life. For eighteen years he was actively engaged in the duties of his professorship; but in 1854 he resigned this position, and devoted his whole time and strength to literary pursuits. From the year 1837 his home was in the historical "Craigie |