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.

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.

I will play the swan,
And die in music.

I will play the swan,
And die in music.

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.

The swan on still St. Mary's lake
Float double, swan and shadow!

The swan on still St. Mary's lake
Float double, swan and shadow!

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.

The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul
Of that waste place with joy
Hidden in sorrow: at read more

The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul
Of that waste place with joy
Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear
The warble was low, and full and clear.

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.

We bodged again, as I have been a swan
With bootless labor swim against the tide
And read more

We bodged again, as I have been a swan
With bootless labor swim against the tide
And spend her strength with overmatching waves.