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.

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.

I will play the swan, And die in music.

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

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

Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can Her heart inform her tongue--the swan's down-feather That stands upon the swell at full of tide, And neither way inclines.