Marianne Moore

We are what we were at birth, and each trait has remained

in conformity with earth's and with heaven's logic:

Be the devil's tool, resort to black magic,

None can diverge from the ends which Heaven foreordained.

We Call Them the Brave

who likely were reluctant to be brave.

What of it? We call them brave

perhaps? Yes; what if the time should come

when no one will fight for anything

and there's nothing of worth to save.

Maine should be pleased that its animal

is not a waverer, and rather

than fight, lets the primed quill fall.

Shallow oppressor, intruder,

insister, you have found a resister.

The problems is mastered — insupportably

tiring when it was impending.

Deliverance accounts for what sounds like axiom. The Gordian knot need not be cut.

Some speak of things we know, as new;

And you, of things unknown as things forgot.

Staff and effigy of the animal

which by shedding its skin

is a sign of renewal —

the symbol of medicine.

A symbol from the first, of mastery,

experiments such as Hippocrates made

and substituted for vague

speculation stayed

the ravages of plague.

Love, ah Love, when your slipknot's drawn,

One can but say, "Farewell, good sense."

So wary as to disappear for centuries and reappear

but never caught,

the unicorn has been preserved

by an unmatched device

wrought like the work of expert blacksmiths ...

that which is impossible to force, it is impossible

to hinder.

He's not out

seeing a sight but the rock

crystal thing to see — the startling El Greco

brimming with inner light — that

covets nothing that it has let go. This then you may know

as the hero.