Page 176 - 100 Best Loved Poems - Teaching Unit
P. 176
“The Chambered Nautilus”
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., pages 60-61
Vocabulary
gauze – sewn cloth
irised – eye-like
1. Rather than describe them as sails, Holmes writes, “webs of living gauze.” In what ways
are the sails of a ship “living gauze”?
2. The use of “dim dreaming…dwell” is an example of what literary device?
3. The poem’s final stanza reveals a metaphorical message of the poem. What is the
chambered nautilus a symbol of?
4. What “heavenly message” does the poem’s subject convey to the speaker?
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