When the swans turned my sister into a swan
 I would go to the lake, at night, from milking:
The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan,
 A swan's red beak; and the beak would open
And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon.

Out on the lake, a girl would laugh.
 "Sister, here is your porridge, sister,"
I would call; and the reeds would whisper,
 "Go to sleep, go to sleep, little swan."
My legs were all hard and webbed, and the silky

Hairs of my wings sank away like stars
 In the ripples that ran in and out of the reeds:
I heard through the lap and hiss of water
 Someone's "Sister . . . sister," far away on the shore,
And then as I opened my beak to answer

I heard my harsh laugh go out to the shore
 And saw - saw at last, swimming up from the green
Low mounds of the lake, the white stone swans:
 The white, named swans . . . "It is all a dream,"
I whispered, and reached from the down of the pallet

To the lap and hiss of the floor.
 And "Sleep, little sister," the swan all sang
From the moon and stars and frogs of the floor.
 But the swan my sister called, "Sleep at last, little sister,"
And stroked all night, with a black wing, my wings.

Poet: Randall Jarrell
Poem: The Black Swan
Volume: The Complete Poems
Year: Published/Written in 1969

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