The speaker, offering no identification, directly queries someone—presumably the reader since nobody else is identified—as to whether they saw a swan as it drifted down a river of black water through the night. This inquiry is immediately followed up with another as the speaker asks if the reader saw the swan take off into the air from its position in the water.
Within this second question is inserted a description of the bird’s feathers using metaphorical imagery. It is all at once a bouquet of white flowers, a commingling of both shiny and dull white fabrics, a drift of snow, and a thicket of lilies.
The only dark spot within this flood of white is the bird’s black beak from which issues a high-pitched piercing symphony of whistling like a flute, but also somehow dark in tone the sound of a storm raining down upon trees or a waterfall issuing from a high rocky cliff.
The speaker asks again if the reader saw it, this time referring to the bird in flight. Once again, its whiteness dominates as its outstretched wings made it look like a cross flying through the sky. Heading away from the speaker, only spots of darkness contrasting with all that lightness are the swan’s black feet.
The speaker continues to pose questions, but as the swan flies farther from view, the queries grow increasingly philosophical and personal. The subject of the speaker’s interest changes from the swan to the reader’s reaction to the swan. The poem comes to conclusion on three direct inquiries that begin in the abstract, asking without clarification if the reader felt in their heart how “it” “pertained to everything?” This leads to the reader being asked if they have figured out the point of beauty. And then, finally, the last of the seven questions the speaker asks over the course of the poem. It is a question few could have predicted the poem would lead to as the speak demands to know if the reader has changed their life.
