At the end of last month a swan landed on the lake at Barmeath.
A pair of swans were a fixture in my childhood but they disappeared in recent years. There’s a lot of algae and rushes that may not be to their liking. At the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle its swan is a famous fixture.
An ingenuous construction made of silver and glass it is an 18th century, life-size, clockwork automaton. Dominic Cummings couldn’t miss it. To my mind it is an ostentatious, vulgar bit of kitsch suitable to take very young children to see when it is activated. Orlando Gibbons’ silver swan is another matter.
The silver swan, who living had no note,
When death approached, unlocked her silent throat;
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more:
“Farewell, all joys; Oh death, come close mine eyes;
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.”
Gibbons (1583 – 1625) is a composer who speaks so relevantly across the centuries.