In what way would a "yawning seam" tempt the sea?
What is the "painted shell"?
How is a ship launched?
What other poem have you read which describes the launching of a ship? Who wrote it?
Which poem do you like better? Why?
Words and Phrases for Discussion.
"gnarled oak"
"faithless joint"
"coral peak"
"the sailor's citadel"
"snowy wing"
"Desert's golden sand"
"spice of Morningland"
Oliver Wendell Holmes's birth year, 1809, was made memorable on both sides of the Atlantic by the births of Lincoln, Tennyson, Poe, and Gladstone. His father, of colonial descent, was a Congregational minister at Cambridge. On his mother's side--the Wendells or Vondels--he was of Dutch descent.