"Swan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you, with the authoritie of the oldest and learnedst tyme. In Grece, whan Poetrie was euen at the hiest pitch of per- fitnes, one Simmias Rhodius of a certaine singularitie wrote a booke in ryming Greke verses, naming it oon, conteyning the fable, how Iupiter in likenes of a swan, gat that egge vpon Leda, whereof came Castor, Pollux and faire Elena. This booke was so liked, that it had few to read it, but none to folow it: But was presentlie contemned: and sone after, both Author and booke, so forgotten by men, and consumed by tyme, as scarse the name of either ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham
... famous rivers further shore, There stood a snowie Swan, of heavenly hiew 590 And gentle kinde as ever fowle afore; A fairer one in all the goodlie criew Of white Strimonian brood might no man view: There he most sweetly sung the prophecie Of his owne death ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... dignified and yet pathetic swan-song of the dying Manchu dynasty. Whatever our political sympathies may be, we are not obliged to withhold our tribute of compassion for the sudden and startling collapse of a dynasty that has ruled China—not always inefficiently—for the last two ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... quiet interlude in sorting out the one he wants, then fills it, bangs the lid down, and rehangs it in position. Having repeated the process with the remainder, he glows with a sense of duty done, and bursts into his farewell song; I often wish that it was his swan-song. He produces in this vocal valediction noises which to the ears of a Futurist composer might seem as Olympian music, but which to my insufficiently educated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... out to her daughter-in-law, and to make her son's wife her friend and confidante. But such a relationship was impossible; for, when she tried to share with her daughter the emotions which crowded upon her, they rolled off the queen like water off the breast of a swan. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
|
