Eliza, creature of the sweetest beauty,
You love your brothers with a love that’s pure.
A curse has made them swans, but there’s a cure.
I’ll tell it, but to do it is your duty.
To bring them back as men, you need not perish,
But gather nettles, plucked by your own hands,
Compress them down and spin them into strands,
And weave eleven shirts for those you cherish.
There’s no way back, and nothing else worth trying.
The weed will slice you, sting you to the bone,
But you must bear it, carry on alone.
And at the end, you’ll see that I’m not lying,
That this is not just something that you dreamed.
Your brothers, through your pain, will be redeemed.
When every shirt is woven, place them all,
At one same moment, on each brother’s shoulder.
If not, their fate is ghastly. They will fall
In darkest depths where they’ll forever molder.
And more than anything: don’t talk, cry, call
Until all’s done. Your mouth seal up and solder.
For truly, you will bring upon your brothers
Excruciating torments that eclipse
What any men have ever forced on others
If you let any sound escape your lips.
To be interred alive, to wake up blind
Within a clammy coffin, wet walls crumbling,
Is not as dreadful as the death designed
For them, if you so much as think of mumbling.
