The Chambered Nautilus

The Chambered Nautilus, poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes, first published in the February 1858 issue of The Atlantic Monthly in his “Breakfast-Table” column. Written in five seven-line stanzas, the poem later appeared in collections of poems by Holmes. The poem takes as its central metaphor the sea creature of the title, which constructs its shell in an ever-widening coil of chambers.