The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay

The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay, poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes, published in his “Breakfast-Table” column in The Atlantic Monthly (September 1858).

Often interpreted as a satire on the breakdown of Calvinism in America, the poem concerns a “one-hoss shay” (i.e., one-horse chaise) constructed logically and with all parts of equal strength by a New England deacon. Though it is meant to last forever, the vehicle spontaneously falls apart 100 years after it was built.