Tag Archives: swans

a Spenserian Sonnet

by Thomas Davis

Four swans, crow-feather black, fly low above
The lake’s ice, white with tints of apple green.
Upon a red roof ravens, croaking of
The way the blue-black of their feather’s sheen
Swift shadows on the snow’s white shining, preen
Into a circle, stirring whispering winds
That cause white wisps to pirouette, careen
Across the fields as daylight slowly ends.

A black cat tops a hill and then descends
Into a field where fourteen cats have made
A ring beneath a full moon; each pretends
The others aren’t as eyes glow green as jade —

The wind blows cold; the silver moon is bright
As black swans fly into the spell-bound night.