For authorities whose hopes <br />are shaped by mercenaries? <br />Writers entrapped by <br />teatime fame and by <br />commuters' comforts? Not for these <br />the paper nautilus <br />constructs her thin glass shell. <br /> <br />Giving her perishable <br />souvenir of hope, a dull <br />white outside and smooth- <br />edged inner surface <br />glossy as the sea, the watchful <br />maker of it guards it <br />day and night; she scarcely <br /> <br />eats until the eggs are hatched. <br />Buried eight-fold in her eight <br />arms, for she is in <br />a sense a devil- <br />fish, her glass ram'shorn-cradled freight <br />is hid but is not crushed; <br />as Hercules, bitten <br /> <br />by a crab loyal to the hydra, <br />was hindered to succeed, <br />the intensively <br />watched eggs coming from <br />the shell free it when they are freed,-- <br />leaving its wasp-nest flaws <br />of white on white, and close- <br /> <br />laid Ionic chiton-folds <br />like the lines in the mane of <br />a Parthenon horse, <br />round which the arms had <br />wound themselves as if they knew love <br />is the only fortress <br />strong enough to trust to.<br /><br />Marianne Moore<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-paper-nautilus/
