When the swans turned my sister into a swan <br /> I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: <br />The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, <br /> A swan's red beak; and the beak would open <br />And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. <br /> <br />Out on the lake, a girl would laugh. <br /> "Sister, here is your porridge, sister," <br />I would call; and the reeds would whisper, <br /> "Go to sleep, go to sleep, little swan." <br />My legs were all hard and webbed, and the silky <br /> <br />Hairs of my wings sank away like stars <br /> In the ripples that ran in and out of the reeds: <br />I heard through the lap and hiss of water <br /> Someone's "Sister . . . sister," far away on the shore, <br />And then as I opened my beak to answer <br /> <br />I heard my harsh laugh go out to the shore <br /> And saw - saw at last, swimming up from the green <br />Low mounds of the lake, the white stone swans: <br /> The white, named swans . . . "It is all a dream," <br />I whispered, and reached from the down of the pallet <br /> <br />To the lap and hiss of the floor. <br /> And "Sleep, little sister," the swan all sang <br />From the moon and stars and frogs of the floor. <br /> But the swan my sister called, "Sleep at last, little sister," <br />And stroked all night, with a black wing, my wings.<br /><br />Randall Jarrell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-black-swan/
