Yes, proof was plain that, since the day
    When this ill-fated traveller died,
    The Dog had watched about the spot,
    Or by his master’s side: 
    How nourished here through such long time
    He knows, who gave that love sublime;
    And gave that strength of feeling, great
    Above all human estimate.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

 THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

People are more and more coming to recognise the fact that each individual soul has a right to its own stages of development.  “The Chambered Nautilus” is for that reason beloved of the masses.  It is one of the grandest poems ever written.  “Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul!” This line alone would make the poem immortal. (1809-94.)

    This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
          Sailed 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 chambered 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 wreathed 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!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

 CROSSING THE BAR

Tennyson’s (1809-92) “Crossing the Bar” is one of the noblest death-songs ever written.  I include it in this volume out of respect to a young Philadelphia publisher who recited it one stormy night before the passengers of a ship when I was crossing the Atlantic, and also because so many young people have the good taste to love it.  It has been said that next to Browning’s