<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=453848" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>His Shield</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The pin-swin or spine-swine<br>(the edgehog miscalled hedgehog) with all his edges out,<br>echidna and echinoderm in distressed-<br>pin-cushion thorn-fur coats, the spiny pig or porcupine,<br>the rhino with horned snout–<br>everything is battle-dressed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Pig-fur won’t do, I’ll wrap<br>myself in salamander-skin like Presbyter John.<br>A lizard in the midst of flames, a firebrand<br>that is life, asbestos-eyed asbestos-eared, with tattooed nap<br>and permanent pig on<br>the instep; he can withstand</div><div style="margin:10px 0">fire and won’t drown. In his<br>unconquerable country of unpompous gusto,<br>gold was so common none considered it; greed<br>and flattery were unknown. Though rubies large as tennis-<br>balls conjoined in streams so<br>that the mountain seemed to bleed,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">the inextinguishable <br>salamander styled himself but presbyter. His shield<br>was his humility. In Carpasian<br>linen coat, flanked by his household lion-cubs and sable<br>retinue, he revealed<br>a formula safer than</div><div style="margin:10px 0">an armorer’s: the power of relinquishing <br>what one would keep; that is freedom. Become dinosaur-<br>skulled, quilled or salamander-wooled, more ironshod<br>and javelin-dressed than a hedgehog battalion of steel, but be<br>dull. Don’t be envied or<br>armed with a measuring rod.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Marianne+Moore">Marianne Moore</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=453848" data-title="His Shield de Marianne Moore" data-description="The pin-swin or spine-swine (the edgehog miscalled hedgehog) with all his edges out, echidna and echinoderm in distressed- pin-cushion thorn-fur coats, the spiny pig or porcupine, the rhino with horned snout– everything is battle-dressed. Pig-f..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black