The weight of them so heavy downward weighs,
They in the stream were driven to cast them down,
Only two swans sustained so great a prize,
In spite of him who sought them all to drown:
These two did still take up whose names they list,
And bare them safe away, and never miss'd.
Sometime all under the foul lake they dived,
And took up some that were with water cover'd,
And those that seem'd condemned they reprived.
And often as about the bank they hovered,