Famous quotes containing the words swan song, thomas, chatterton, swan and/or song:
“Old age cannot be cured. An epoch or a civilization cannot be prevented from breathing its last. A natural process that happens to all flesh and all human manifestations cannot be arrested. You can only wring your hands and utter a beautiful swan song.”
—Renee Winegarten (b. 1922)
“Deep with the first dead lies London’s daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Liste! now the thunder’s rattling clymmynge sound
Cheves slowlie on, and then embollen clangs,
Shakes the hie spyre, and losst, dispended, drown’d,
Still on the gallard eare of terroure hanges;
The windes are up; the lofty elmen swanges;
Again the levynne and the thunder poures,
And the full cloudes are braste attenes in stonen showers.”
—Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770)
“I have seen this swan and
I have seen you; I have seen ambition without
understanding in a variety of forms.”
—Marianne Moore (1887–1972)
“you see, we live in a cold climate
and are not permitted to kiss on the street
so I made up a song that wasn’t true.
I made up a song called Marriage.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)