I will play the swan,
And die in music.

I will play the swan,
And die in music.

Death darkens his eyes, and unplumes his wings,
Yet the sweetest song is the last he sings:
read more

Death darkens his eyes, and unplumes his wings,
Yet the sweetest song is the last he sings:
Live so, my Love, that when death shall come,
Swan-like and sweet it may waft thee home.

Coal-black is better than another hue
In that it scorns to bear another hue;
For all the read more

Coal-black is better than another hue
In that it scorns to bear another hue;
For all the water in the ocean
Can never turn the swan's black legs to white,
Although she lave them hourly in the flood.

There's a double beauty whenever a swan
Swims on a lake with her double thereon.

There's a double beauty whenever a swan
Swims on a lake with her double thereon.

The dying swan, when years her temples pierce,
In music-strains breathes out her life and verse,
And, read more

The dying swan, when years her temples pierce,
In music-strains breathes out her life and verse,
And, chanting her own dirge, tides on her wat'ry hearse.

I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
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I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
And from the organ-pipe of fraity sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.

Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,
Where nothing save the waves and I
May hear our mutual read more

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.

Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
Then if he lose he makes a swanlike end,
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Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
Then if he lose he makes a swanlike end,
Fading in music.

The swan is not without cause dedicated to Apollo, because
foreseeing his happiness in death, he dies with singing read more

The swan is not without cause dedicated to Apollo, because
foreseeing his happiness in death, he dies with singing and
pleasure.
[Lat., Cignoni non sine causa Apoloni dicata sint, quod ab eo
divinationem habere videantur, qua providentes quid in morte boni
sit, cum cantu et voluptate moriantur.]