A swan always gives the idea of a court-lady, — stately in her grace, ruffling in her bravery, and conscious of the floating plumes that mark her pretensions. The peacock is a coquette ; it turns in the sunshine, it looks round as if to ask the conscious air of its purple and gold ; but the swan sails on in majestic tranquillity, it sees the fair image of its perfect grace on the waters below, and is content.
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, There, swan-like, let me sing and die.
The jelous swan, agens hire deth that syngith.
Death darkens his eyes, and unplumes his wings, Swan-like and sweet it may waft thee home.
The immortal swan that did her life deplore.
The dying swan, when years her temples pierce,And, chanting her own dirge, tides on her wat'ry hearse.
The swan in the pool is singing, Dips under the water clear.
And over the pond are sailing They presently must die.
The swan, like the soul of the poet,By the dull world is ill understood.
There's a double beauty whenever a swanSwims on a lake with her double thereon.
The swan murmurs sweet strains with a faltering tongue, itself the singer of its own dirge.
The swan, with arched neckHer state with oary feet.
Thus does the white swan, as he lies on the wet grass, when theFates summon him, sing at the fords of Mæander.
The swan's down-feather,And neither way inclines.
As I have seen a swanAnd spend her strength with over-matching waves.
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,His soul and body to their lasting rest.
(Let music sound while he doth make his choice)Then if he lose he makes a swan-like end.
I will play the swanAnd die in music.
For all the water in the ocean,Although she lave them hourly in the flood.
You think that upon the score of fore-knowledge and divining I am infinitely inferior to the swans. When they perceive approaching death they sing more merrily than before, because of the joy they have in going to the God they serve.
The wild swan's death-hymn took the soulThe warble was low, and full and clear.
Some full-breasted swanWith swarthy webs.
The stately-sailing swanProtective of his young.
The swan on still St. Mary's lakeFloat double, swan and shadow!