33 A Pen-Drawing of Leda (1892)

Michael Field

A charcoal, chalk, and ink study of Leonardo da Vinci's "Leda and the Swan." In it, Leda embraces the swan with one arm and pulls back lilies with the other to reveal their children hatching from eggs.
Study for Leda and the Swan (now lost), c. 1506–1508. Chatsworth House, England. CC. Image from Wikimedia.org.

A Pen-Drawing of Leda

by Michael Field

SODOMA

The Grand Duke’s Palace at Weimar

 

  ‘TIS Leda lovely, wild and free,
        Drawing her gracious Swan down through the grass to see
        Certain round eggs without a speck:
One hand plunged in the reeds and one dinting the downy neck,
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        Although his hectoring bill
        Gapes toward her tresses,
She draws the fondled creature to her will.
  She joys to bend in the live light
Her glistening body toward her love, how much more bright!
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         Though on her breast the sunshine lies
And spreads its affluence on the wide curves of her waist and thighs,
         To her meek, smitten gaze
         Where her hand presses
The Swan’s white neck sink Heaven’s concentrated rays.

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A Pen-Drawing of Leda (1892) Copyright © by Michael Field is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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