To and again from Heaven.——
You must not think me infected with the spirit of Lauder, if I give you another of Milton's Imitations:
——The Swan with arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet.—B. 7. V. 438, &c.
“The ancient Poets,” says Mr. Richardson, “have not hit upon this beauty; so lavish as they have been in their descriptions of the Swan. Homer calls the Swan long-necked, δουλιχοδείρον; but how much more pittoresque, if he had arched this length of neck?”
For this beauty, however, Milton was beholden to Donne; whose name, I believe, at present is better known than his writings:
——Like a Ship in her full trim,
A Swan, so white that you may unto him
Compare all whitenesse, but himselfe to none,