[7]
THE DYING SWAN.
To its own Proper Tune.
’TWAS on a river’s verdant side,
about the close of day,
A dying swan with music try’d
to chace her cares away.
And tho’ she ne’er had strain’d her throat,
or tun’d her voice before.
Death, ravish’d with so sweet a note,
a while the stroke forebore.
Farewell, she cry’d, ye silver streams,
ye purling waves adieu,
Where Phoebus us’d to dart his beams,
and bless both me and you.
Farewell, ye tender whistling reeds,
soft scenes of happy love;
Farewell, ye bright enamell’d meads,
where I was wont to rove.
With you I must no more converse;
look, yonder setting sun
Waits, while I these last notes rehearse,
and then he must be gone.
Mourn not, my kind and constant mate,
we’ll meet again below:
It is the kind decree of Fate,
and I with pleasure go,
