For National Poetry month: On the occasion of the return of the swans to my workplace

[mojosmom]

An excerpt from Edmund Spenser's Prothalamion:

With that I saw two Swannes of goodly hewe
Come softly swimming down along the Lee;
Two fairer Birds I yet did never see;
The snow, which doth the top of Pindus strew,
Did never whiter shew;
Nor Jove himself, when he a Swan would be,
For love of Leda, whiter did appear;
Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he,
Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near;
So purely white they were,
That even the gentle stream, the which them bare,
Seem`d foul to them, and bad his billows spare
To wet their silken feathers, least they might
Soyle their fayre plumes with water not so fayre,
And marre their beauties bright,
That shone as heavens light,
Against their Brydale day, which was not long:
Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my Song.

(Entire text here.)