"The blazon of expressed shapeliness.."

Some very nice lines on domestication from poet, critic, and philosopher Fred Turner, from his The New World: An Epic Poem (1985).

"We are the holy and dangerous beast who dared

to domesticate not only our plant and animal servants

but also ourselves: and not for usefulness only

but chiefly for beauty, the blazon of expressed shapeliness

and so the heroic hang of the Great Dane

the pretty baroque of the King Charles spaniel

the deathlike elegance of the Siamese cat, the fire

of the fighting fish, bulbous flash of the koi, pout

and delicate feather of pigeon and dove that Darwin

admired, crimson petals of rose and peony,

are only attendants on the sovereign differences given

to this clan of mutated monkeys, to itself by itself ".