Shall not the waters surge. . .

Hard to resist this kind of beautiful design. He just popped out of the water, and shook. 

You can see the tiny droplets of water on his back. 

I almost didn't bother taking the camera outside because

the light wasn't great and I really have enough

duck pictures for one lifetime. Or two.

The feathers that make the white line on his side are beautifully patterned;

last year I found some in the yard, but this isn't shedding season.

(Just one stanza from) 

The Stream's Secret

Stream, when this silver thread
In flood-time is a torrent brown
May any bulwark bind thy foaming crown?
Shall not the waters surge and spread
And to the crannied boulders of their bed
Still shoot the dead drift down?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti  (1828-1882)

This is but one stanza of a poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti that

(unless I counted wrong, but you get the idea!) has 41 stanzas!

The whole poem can be found here; it is beautiful and like a feast in the possibilities of the English language. Each stanza has the careful rhyme scheme and rhythmic pattern that characterized much of 19th century English poetry. Note the power of the final line in this stanza, with its feast of one-syllable words!