unions of his class. Study, as an example of this side of his genius, one written thirty years after his graduation, and called Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? 5 We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! ΙΟ Look close, — you will see not a sign of a flake ! 15 20 25 We want some new garlands for those we have shed, – We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge "; That fellow's the "Speaker," the one on the right; That's our 66 Member of Congress," we say when we chaff; There's the "Reverend" What's his name?— don't make me laugh. That boy with the grave mathematical look Made believe he had written a wonderful book, And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true! a good joke it was too! There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain, That could harness a team with a logical chain; When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, We called him "The Justice," but now he's "The Squire." 1 Copyright, 1861, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Boston. And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith, 30 Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; But he shouted a song for the brave and the free, — Just read on his medal, "My country," "of thee"! 35 40 You hear that boy laughing? — You think he's all fun; Yes, we're boys, — always playing with tongue or with pen; Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! Thirty years after graduation most men are about fifty years of age, and so are beginning to feel as if they might some day be old. Holmes makes this lurking uneasiness the theme of the lyric, gayly denies that they are any older than when they graduated, and so secures the mingling of fun and grave suggestion in which he excels. The measure is anapestic, the swinging effect of which is well adapted to a convivial song. There are several allusions to his classmates, some of whom are men not unknown to fame. The "Reverend" of line 20 is probably Rev. James Freeman Clarke, a distinguished Boston minister, and a very intimate friend of Dr. Holmes. "That boy with the grave mathematical look," line 21, is Professor Benjamin Peirce, of Harvard, for a long time the most distinguished mathematician in America. The boy "with the three-decker brain," line 25, is Benjamin R. Curtis, who had been a justice of the United States Supreme Court; but in 1857, two years before the writing of this poem, had resigned, and gone into private practice of the law. The "nice youngster of excellent pith," line 29, will probably be recognized at once as Rev. S. F. Smith, the author of "My Country, 'tis of thee." Probably if any of Holmes' poems endures to the immortality of the great, it will be "The Chambered Nautilus." Eternal, precious truth, expressed in faultless form, this little lyric sings itself into the heart. 5 ΙΟ Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming 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, Before thee lies revealed, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! 1 Copyright, 1861, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Boston. 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, 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, 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 |