DIY Homeschooler

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every clambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,—
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

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,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd 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,
As the swift seasons roll!
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!

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1873) | Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894)

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Suggestions

Ask your students to do one or more of the following:

• Determine the rhyme scheme of the poem. (aabbbcc)
• Learn more about the chambered nautilus.
• List five unique characteristics about the chambered nautilus.
• Create a drawing and writing page for the chambered nautilus. Include one copied stanza from the poem and an illustration.
• What comparison is the poet making?
• If you had to sum up the idea the poem is making, what would you say?
• Learn more about Oliver Wendell Holmes.
• Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was known as one of the “fireside poets,” American poets that were popular in the late 1800s whose poems could be read by the entire family around the hearth. Other fireside poets include John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Read at least one poem by each of these authors. Explain how how the themes are similar.
• Create an author page.

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Additional Resources

Robert Fulton: A Unit Study
Fulton named his first submarine “The Nautilus.” Learn more.

Jules Verne: A Unit Study
Verne named the submarine in his book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea the Nautilus. Learn more.

14 Forms of Writing for the Older Student: Poetry
Ideas for doing more with the poem.

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