The Dying Swan
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The Dying Swan is a poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson.
- I.
- The plain was grassy, wild and bare,
- Wide, wild, and open to the air,
- Which had built up everywhere
- An under-roof of doleful gray.
- With an inner voice the river ran,
- Adown it floated a dying swan,
- And loudly did lament.
- It was the middle of the day.
- Ever the weary wind went on,
- And took the reed-tops as it went.
- II.
- Some blue peaks in the distance rose,
- And white against the cold-white sky,
- Shone out their crowning snows.
- One willow over the river wept,
- And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;
- Above in the wind was the swallow,
- Chasing itself at its own wild will,
- And far thro’ the marish green and still
- The tangled water-courses slept,
- Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow.
- III.
- 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;
- And floating about the under-sky,
- Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole
- Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear;
- But anon her awful jubilant voice,
- With a music strange and manifold,
- Flow’d forth on a carol free and bold;
- As when a mighty people rejoice
- With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold,
- And the tumult of their acclaim is roll’d
- Thro’ the open gates of the city afar,
- To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star.
- And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds,
- And the willow-branches hoar and dank,
- And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds,
- And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank,
- And the silvery marish-flowers that throng
- The desolate creeks and pools among,
- Were flooded over with eddying song.
The Dying Swan is also a famous 1905 solo ballet piece choreographed by Michel Fokine for Anna Pavlova. It is set to music by Camille Saint-Saëns, from Le Carnaval des Animaux. (The Saint-Saëns piece is called simply Les Cygnes (The Swan), not the dying swan).