The ugly duckling . . . 
I stood behind my father’s chair so he couldn’t see my tears
When he read it to me. Hans Anderson,
I rise from your feathers every spring
And shake the snow out of my windows. The sulphur sears
My eyes in a world of match girls’ luminous poverty.
I hear your hosannas that life is real and cruel.
The mad stream that takes the brave tin soldier down the flood
Flows by here. While he passes, impractical child,
On his way to death in this strange dream;
Is he still seeing the beautiful, the good?