The Ugly Duckling

Once upon a sunrise misty, a duckling pondered weak and wistf’ly

O’er her siblings yellow who numbered exactly four

While she nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a quacking,

As her nest mates started flapping, yapping until her head was sore.

“They’re just waking,” then she muttered, “waking from the night before -

Only this and nothing more.”

But the quacking sound persisted, until she then her head twisted

To see what caused her siblings to make such a raucous roar.

She soothed then and stilled the beating of her heart and kept repeating

“They’re just waking - waking from the night before.

My brothers and sisters just waking from the long night before; -

This it is and nothing more.”

But her siblings started pecking, poking, prodding and rejecting

“Don’t hurt me,” cried the little duckling. “Stop your pecking I implore.”

“We don’t want you,” said a sibling. “Begone now. No more quibbling!

“You’re plumb ugly so just leave now. Surely you must know the score.”

“Begone!” echoed her other siblings as one pointed to the great barn door.

“Show your face here nevermore!”

She wandered all the long day peering, seeking solace, ever fearing,

Doubting herself and dreaming of a day when fear would come no more.

When of a sudden she heard some honking. A flock of geese nearby were plonking

Themselves on the grass of a great meadow, resting for the night by the lake shore.

“I’ll join them,” thought our little duckling, “on the meadow by the lake shore.

“My webbed feet are very sore.”

On the morrow came some hunters, their loud weapons booming thunder

As the geese took wing and into the dawn’s light they did soar.

The little duckling could not fly yet and escape by flight was not a sure bet

“If I stay quiet they may not notice me alone here on the shore.

Let my heart be still a moment as I rest here on the shore.”

As the skies were filled with gore.

The little duckling sat and shivered, it was fall and in the cold she quivered.

A farmer and his wife they found her, found her half frozen by the shore.

They took her home and resussed her, pampered her and happ’ly fussed her.

The duckling thought she was at home now. They made her a bed in a kitchen drawer.

A cozy warm bed just right for her, the bed inside the kitchen drawer.

She wanted to stay here ever more.

But came the spring they put her out then, into the barnyard, into a stout pen.

With other creatures she now lived, a calf, some hens and piglets four.

Until one night up in the rafter she thought she heard the sound of laughter.

She looked up and there espied a Raven, whose beady eye o’er her did pore.

“Foolish bird, they mean to eat you! See the axe there by the door.

“My warning you must not ignore!”

Much she marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly

But also cautious for she could tell his message it was most hard core.

The farmer she knew she had to scupper if she was to avoid being had for supper.

“Help me please,” she begged the Raven in the rafter by the big barn door.

“For if you don’t help me will I become just a piece of forgotten lore?”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore!”

For birds the Raven is quite clever and in times of need as a friend is ever

Helpful and inventive as he fluttered to the latch of the stock pen door.

He lifted it and the door did open, the duckling now had hope in

Her heart as she raced for the open door, the wide open stock pen door.

“Make haste!” the Raven then he told her. “Back to the lake, back to the shore.

“Hurry back to the lake shore!”

The duckling raced as fast as she could, to the lake by the meadow and green wood

Where she saw with wonder fowl so noble, swans a-swimming just offshore.

‘Twas then she saw her own reflection, she eyed it with great circumspection.

Scarcely believing what she saw in the reflection by the lake shore.

One swan then seemed to know her as if in a fable told of yore.

“It’s you! It is my lost Lenore!”

The duckling really was no duckling. She cried as now her legs were buckling.

Into the water she flounced and swam to the swan whose resemblance she now bore.

“Lenore,” the swan said, “I was afraid you were gone forever when I mislaid you

“In a nest not mine so long ago, a nest not mine so long before.”

“Stay with our flock and please forgive me, for I will love you child of yore.

“I will love you evermore.”