The Ugly Little Duck - Stephin Merritt

It was glorious in the country

There were plants

They were yellow and green

And the stork was speaking egyptian

For egyptian his mummy had been

'Neath a burdock tree sat a mother

Sat and sat that her children would hatch

Which they did mostly but one other

The big round one that just didn't match

It seemed to take forever

One unhappy day came the duckling

Though his egg had been faithfully warmed

He was so much larger than average

He could best be described as deformed

He was much too gray and too fluffy

As the other ducks loudly opined

When he cried they said:

don't get huffy

You can keep on living we don't mind

It's just that you're so ugly

So he left early in the morning

But he found wherever he would roam

That despite some changes in the sceenry

Everyone was as vile as at home

As he settled in for the winter

Overhead flew a flock of such birds

That his vision stuck like a spinter

They were all too beautiful for words

That winter it was freezing

I can't tell you how much he suffered

This descirpiton will have to suffice:

He was paddling round the lake when

His poor feet were frozen in the ice

When it snowed again he was buried

Then it snowed some more over his head

There he sat too cold to be worried

Truth to tell he just thought he was dead

He didn't mind that one bit

But the spring was here and a thaw came

Our half-dead little hero survived

And the daffodil and the crocus

Sang aloud: one more spring has arrived

And the lovely birds gathered round him

He was nuzzled and doted upon

Then he knew his family had found him

He'd become the most beautiful swan

I never dreamed of such amazing luck

When I was just an ugly little duck