List three examples of imagery used in "The Chambered Nautilus."

The entire poem is rife with rich imagery.  First, the speaker compares the shell to a ship that has been abandoned.  As he beholds the "ship of pearl" he wonders about the years that it took to create such a vessel, "Year after year beheld the silent toil / That spread his lustrous coil;" and wonders further what might have caused the hearty worker to leave his home:  "Still, as the spiral grew, / He left the past year's dwelling for the new...". 

Later, he gives the shell as much signficance as the gods of old, the imagery here is of the god Triton whom, as he contemplates the empty remains envisions  "From thy dead lips a clearer note is born / Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn."

The speaker is flabbergasted by the beauty and complexity of such a seemingly insignificant creature.  The image in the last stanza is of a beautiful mansion, and the hopes that he, a much more complicated creature than the nautilus, might be worthy of even greater feats.  He concludes, "Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul...Till thou at length art free, / Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!"

What are three effective examples of imagery in "The Chambered Nautilus"?

Supporting the poet's purpose of expressing the importance of continually building a nobler, more spiritual existence, imagery in Oliver Wendell Holmes's "The Chambered Nautilus" becomes very effective. In the first stanza, for instance, the nautilus as the human soul is compared to a "ship of pearl" that has "purpled wings," lending it nobility with the images of a gem, the pearl, and the royal color of purple.  Further, the visual imagery of "living gauze" and "the frail tenant" in "its sunless crypt unsealed" in the second stanza points to the delicacy of the soul that must be afforded a spiritual existence. Then, growth and expansion of the soul is suggested in the third stanza with more visual imagery as "the spiral grew" and "Stretched." In the fourth stanza, Holmes's use of apostrophe conveys an outburst of feeling while the auditory imagery of notes from the horn of Triton, a sea god, emphasizes the importance of the "heavenly message" of the nautilus. Finally, in the last stanza, with the metaphor of "stately mansions," Holmes encourages the soul to strive for virtue.  The visual imagery of "low-vaulted past" and now a "dome more vast" suggests the expansion of spiritual growth and underscores the message of the poet.

Perhaps, the most effective use of imagery is with those images that associate the nautilus with the human soul.  Here are three images that create this association through personification:

1. "its dim dreaming life" - This image appears in the second stanza and personifies the nautilus as a person capable of dreams.
2. "the frail tenant" - This image suggests the tenuous hold the soul has upon the person, a hold that must be nurtured.
3. "Child of the wandering sea" - This personification that includes the visual image of the ocean suggests the search that the soul has for good and its development.

Clearly, imagery in "The Chambered Nautilus" lends a visual and auditory experience to the imagined expansion of the soul in its journey through life, with the nautilus as its metaphor.