StoryTitle("caps", "The Chambered Nautilus") ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PagePoem(59, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "This is the ship of pearl which, poets feign, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Sails the unshadowed main,—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "The venturous bark that flings", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And coral reefs lie bare,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Wrecked is the ship of pearl!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And every chambered cell,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Before thee lies revealed,—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Year after year beheld the silent toil ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "That spread his lustrous coil; ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Still, as the spiral grew,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He left the past year's dwelling for the new, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Stole with soft step its shining archway through, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Built up its idle door,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Child of the wandering sea,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Cast from her lap, forlorn!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "From thy dead lips a clearer note is born ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn! ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "While on mine ear it rings,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "As the swift seasons roll!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Leave thy low-vaulted past!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Let each new temple, nobler than the last, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, ", "") ?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Till thou at length art free,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("85", SmallCapsText("—Oliver Wendell Holmes.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>