Sonnet by the Lakeside

She was not beautiful, the water showed;

Water had a way like that, of throwing back

Reflections when it should have fallen clear

To pebbles and the shrug of diving minnows.

No tails led deep that her eyes might follow.

Gently, the riding surface blurred her brow.

Perhaps her features' frail asymmetry

Was nothing more than ripples smiled by swans.

Waves smoothed, but night had glazed her mirror dark.

Hung on a hawk's arc, her eyes rode swanless sky:

No white wings beat against her beauty there,

For stars have countenances all their own:

Angular Diana holds aloft the dead bird.

Orion admires quietly the brilliant kill.