Her and the Swan

 A quick blow:  the great wings beat still
 On top of the tripped up girl, her thighs touched like rest
 By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
 He holds her weak breast on his breast.

 How can those vague hands with fear push
 The fletched glow from her loosed thighs?
 And how can she, laid in that white rush,
 But feel the strange heart beat where it lies?

 A jerk in the loins sires there
 The smashed wall, the burnt roof and plinth
 And her son-in-law dead.
                          As she was so caught up,
 So held by the brute blood of the air,
 Did she take on what he knew with his strength
 Till the bored beak could let her drop?

                                -- Will Yeats

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