Classic Poem

Who saith our times nor have, nor can
Produce us a black swan?
Behold, where one doth swim,
Whose note, and hue,
Besides the other swans admiring him,
Betray it true:
A gentler bird, than this,
Did never dint the breast of Tamesis.

Mark, mark, but when his wing he takes,
How fair a flight he makes!
How upward, and direct!
Whilst pleased Apollo
Smiles in his sphere, to see the rest affect,
In vain to follow:
This swan is only his,
And Phoebus's love cause of his blackness is.

He showed him first the hoof-cleft spring,
Near which, the Thespiads sing;
The clear Dircaean fount
Where Pindar swam;
The pale Pyrene, and the forkèd mount:
And, when they came
To brooks, and broader streams,
From Zephyr's rape would close him with his beams.

This changed his down; till this, as white
As the whole herd in sight,
And still is in the breast:
That part nor wind,
Nor sun could make to vary from the rest,
Or alter kind.
So much doth virtue hate,
For style of rareness, to degenerate.

Be then both rare, and good; and long
Continue thy sweet song.
Nor let one river boast
Thy tunes alone;
But prove the air, and sail from coast to coast:
Salute old Mone,
But first to Cluid stoop low,
The vale, that bred thee pure, as her hills snow.

From thence, display thy wing again
Over Ierna main,
To the Eugenian dale;
There charm the rout
With thy soft notes, and hold them within pale
That late were out.
Music hath power to draw,
Where neither force can bend, nor fear can awe.

Be proof, the glory of his hand,
(Charles Montjoy) whose command
Hath all been harmony:
And more bath won
Upon the kern, and wildest Irishry,
Than time hath done,
Whose strength is above strength;
And conquers all things, yea itself, at length.

Whoever sipped at Baphyre river,
That heard but spite deliver
His far-admiréd acts,
And is not rapt
With entheate rage, to publish their bright tracts?
(But this more apt
When him alone we sing)
Now must we ply our aim; our swan's on wing.

Who(see) already bath o'er-flown
The Hebrid Isles, and known
The scattered Orcades;
From thence is gone
To utmost Thule: whence, he backs the seas
To Caledon,
And over Grampius' mountain,
To Lomond Lake, and Tweed's black-springing fountain.

Haste, haste, sweet singer: nor to Tyne,
Humber, or Ouse, decline;
But, over land to Trent:
There cool thy plumes,
And up again, in skies, and air to vent
Their reeking fumes;
Till thou at Thames alight,
From whose proud bosom, thou began'st thy flight.

Thames, proud of thee, and of his fate
In entertaining late
The choice of Europe's pride;
The nimble French;
The Dutch whom wealth (not hatred) doth divide;
The Danes that drench
Their cares in wine; with sure
Though slower Spain; and Italy mature.

All which, when they but hear a strain
Of thine, shall think the main
Hath sent her mermaids in,
To hold them here:
Yet, looking in thy face, they shall begin
To lose that fear;
And (in the place) envy
So black a bird, so bright a quality.

But should they know (as I) that this,
Who warbleth Pancharis,
Were Cycnus, once high flying
With Cupid's wing;
Though, now by love transformed, and daily dying:
(Which makes him sing
With more delight, and grace)
Or thought they, Leda's white adulterer's place

Among the stars should be resigned
To him, and he there shrined;
Or Thames be rapt from us
To dim and drown
In Heaven the sign of old Eridanus:
How they would frown!
But these are mysteries
Concealed from all but clear prophetic eyes.

It is enough, their grief shall know
At their return, nor Po,
Iberus, Tagus, Rhine,
Scheldt, nor the Maas,
Slow Arar, nor swift Rhone; the Loire, nor Seine,
With all the race
Of Europe's waters can
Set out a like, or second to our swan.