Within my house of patterned horn <br />I sleep in such a bed <br />As men may keep before they're born <br />And after when they're dead. <br /> <br />Sticks and stones may break their bones, <br />And words may make them bleed; <br />There is not one of them who owns <br />An armour to his need. <br /> <br />Tougher than hide or lozenged bark, <br />Snow-storm and thunder proof, <br />And quick with sun, and thick with dark, <br />Is this my darling roof. <br /> <br />Men's troubled dreams of death and birth <br />Puls mother-o'-pearl to black; <br />I bear the rainbow bubble Earth <br />Square on my scornful back.<br /><br />Elinor Morton Wylie<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-tortoise-in-eternity/
