swan song

Calque of German Schwanenlied(from Schwan + Lied) or Schwanengesang; from the belief that the mute swan sings before dying.

• "Yet, on the whole, our good Saint-Pierre is musical, poetical though most morbid: we will call his Book the swan-song of old dying France."
• "In no other way can be explained our sacrifices and martyrdoms. For no other reason did Rudolph Mendenhall flame out his soul for the Cause and sing his wild swan-song that last night of life."
• ""A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"[…]—a pretentious volume which Mark Twain really considered his last. "It's my swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently," he wrote Howells, though certainly he was young, fifty-four, to have reached this conclusion."
• "Je ne parle pas français. That was her swan song for me."
• "[…]McCartney III could mark the end of his recording career. For a musician as continually prolific as McCartney (this is his 18th solo record), that seems unlikely. But if it is indeed a swan song, McCartney III will stand as a proper coda for the singer-songwriter we’ve been listening to for fifty-odd years: sentimental yet strong, a bit wistful, but as always, looking ahead."
• "Merkel’s political and scientific sides slug it out in swan song presser [title]"
• "[S]pielberg was keen to stress that The Fabelmans is not a full stop: “It is not because I decided to retire, and this is my swan song, don’t believe that.”"

• farewell performance
• last hurrah
• final act