Marianne Moore

The Paper Nautilus

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