Swanzilla!

It was a divine hour for the human race.
Before, the Swan sang only at its death.
But when the Wagnerian swan began to sing,
there was a new dawning, and a new life.

The song of the Swan is heard above the storms
of the human sea; its aria never ceases;
it dominates the hammering of old Thor,
and the trumpets hailing the sward of Argentir.

Oh Swan! Oh sacred bird!
If once white Helen,
immortal princess of Beauty's realms,
emerged all grace from Leda's sky-blue egg,
so now,

beneath the white of your wings,
the new Poetry,
here in a splendor of music and light,
conceives the pure,
eternal Helen who is the Ideal.

- Ruben Dario, "The Swan"