swan quotes

The silver swan, who living had no note, When death approached, unlocked her silent throat; Leaning her breast against the reedy shore, Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more: 'Farewell, all joys; Oh death, come close mine eyes; More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.'

- Orlando Gibbons
  TheFirst Set of Madrigals and Motets of Five Parts,'The Silver Swan'.

This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game. Better bullets than yours would miss the white breast, Better mirrors than yours would crack in the flame.

- (John) Robinson Jeffers
  Solstice,'Love the Wild Swan'.

Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appear, And make those flights upon the banks of Thames That so did take Eliza, and our James!

- Ben Jonson
  'To the Memory of My Beloved,  the  Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, and What He Hath Left Us', prefatorydedicationto the first folio of Shakespeare's plays.

When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away: Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day.

- Charles Kingsley
  Song. The Water Babies, ch.2.

My soul is an enchanted boat, Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley
  Prometheus Unbound, act 2, sc.5, l.72^4.

The woods decay, the woods decayand fall, The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after manya summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world.

-Tennyson
  'Tithonus' (revised1864),1.1^7.

Like some full-breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs.

-Tennyson
  Idylls of the King,'The Passing of Arthur', l.434^7.

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! We will not see them; will not go, To-day, nor yet to-morrow; Enough if in our hearts we know There's such a place asYarrow. BeYarrow stream unseen, unknown; It must, or we shall rue it: We have a vision of our own, Ah! why should we undo it? The treasured dreams of times long past, We'll keep them, winsome Marrow! For when we're there, although 'tis fair, 'Twill be another Yarrow!

-William Wordsworth
  'Yarrow Unvisited', stanzas 6^7 (published1807).