"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."
Phineas Fletcher's, Purple Island, Canto I.
Giles Fletcher, in his Temptation and Victory of Christ, speaks of—
"The immortal swan that did her life deplore."
An American poet has the following beautiful lines:
"'What is that, mother?'
'The swan, my love;
He is floating down from his native grove,