210 
TENNYSON'S VERSION. 
Qr--^ Of that waste place with joy 
Hidden in sorrow : at first to the ear 
The warble was low, and full, and clear ; 
And floating about the under-sky. 
Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole 
Sometimes afar, and sometimes aneai- ; 
But anon her awful jubilant voice. 
With a music strange and manifold. 
Flowed forth in a carol free and bold 
And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds. 
And the wiUow-branches hoar and danlc. 
And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds. 
And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank. 
And the silvery marish-flowers that throng 
The desolate creeks and pools among. 
Were flooded over with eddying song." 
We can hardly regret the existence of a fiction which has led to 
the enrichment of our literature with so fine a piece of word-harmony. 
Its origin is due to the ancients, and we meet with a reference to it in 
one of Martial's epigrams : — 
" MoUia defecta modulatur cannina lingua 
Cantator Oycnus f uneris ipse suL " 
Hence the epithet of the " Swan " formerly applied to Virgil, and after- 
■vrards to Fenelon, and even to Shakespeare, though no epithet could 
