StoryTitle("caps", "The Nautilus and the Ammonite") ?>
Nautilus and the Ammonite" finds a place here out of respect to
a twelve-year-old girl who recited it at one of our poetry hours years
ago. It made a profound impression on the fifty pupils assembled, I never
read it without feeling that it stands test. Anonymous.
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The nautilus and the ammonite", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Were launched in friendly strife,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Each sent to float in its tiny boat", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "On the wide, wide sea of life.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For each could swim on the ocean's brim,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And, when wearied, its sail could furl,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And sink to sleep in the great sea-deep,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "In its palace all of pearl.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And theirs was a bliss more fair than this", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Which we taste in our colder clime;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For they were rife in a tropic life—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "A brighter and better clime.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They swam 'mid isles whose summer smiles", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Were dimmed by no alloy;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Whose groves were palm, whose air was balm,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And life one only joy.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They sailed all day through creek and bay,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And traversed the ocean deep;", "") ?>
PagePoem(189, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And at night they sank on a coral bank,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "In its fairy bowers to sleep.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the monsters vast of ages past", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "They beheld in their ocean caves;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They saw them ride in their power and pride,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And sink in their deep-sea graves.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And hand in hand, from strand to strand,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "They sailed in mirth and glee;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "These fairy shells, with their crystal cells,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Twin sisters of the sea.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And they came at last to a sea long past,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "But as they reached its shore,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The Almighty's breath spoke out in death,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And the ammonite was no more.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So the nautilus now in its shelly prow,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "As over the deep it strays,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Still seems to seek, in bay and creek,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Its companion of other days.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And alike do we, on life's stormy sea,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "As we roam from shore to shore,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thus tempest-tossed, seek the loved, the lost,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And find them on earth no more.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yet the hope how sweet, again to meet,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "As we look to a distant strand,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Where heart meets heart, and no more they part", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Who meet in that better land.", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("100", SmallCapsText("Anonymous.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>