swan (n.)
swan (v.)
Let beeves and home-bred kine partake
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow;
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!
'T is strange that death should sing.
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.
Did not Jupiter transforme himselfe into the shape of Amphitrio to embrace Alcmaena; into the form of a swan to enjoy Leda; into a Bull to beguile Io; into a showre of gold to win Danae?
Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd,
And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard:
To carry nature lengths unknown before,
To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.
Sweet swan of Avon!
Let beeves and home-bred kine partake
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow;
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!
On thy fair bosom, silver lake,
The wild swan spreads his snowy sail,
And round his breast the ripples break
As down he bears before the gale.
Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan.
Makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music.
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,
Where nothing save the waves and I
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die.
