The Phoenix and the Turtle
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| Let the bird of loudest lay, | 1
| On the sole Arabian tree, | 2
| Herald sad and trumpet be, | 3
| To whose sound chaste wings obey | 4
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| | But thou shrieking harbinger, | 5
| Foul precurrer of the fiend, | 6
| Augur of the fever's end, | 7
| To this troop come thou not near! | 8
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| | From this session interdict | 9
| Every fowl of tyrant wing, | 10
| Save the eagle, feather'd king: | 11
| Keep the obsequy so strict | 12
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| | Let the priest in surplice white, | 13
| That defunctive music can, | 14
| Be the death-divining swan, | 15
| Lest the requiem lack his right | 16
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| | And thou treble-dated crow, | 17
| That thy sable gender makest | 18
| With the breath thou givest and takest, | 19
| 'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go. | 20
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| | Here the anthem doth commence: | 21
| Love and constancy is dead; | 22
| Phoenix and the turtle fled | 23
| In a mutual flame from hence | 24
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| | So they loved, as love in twain | 25
| Had the essence but in one; | 26
| Two distincts, division none: | 27
| Number there in love was slain | 28
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| | Hearts remote, yet not asunder; | 29
| Distance, and no space was seen | 30
| 'Twixt the turtle and his queen: | 31
| But in them it were a wonder | 32
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| | So between them love did shine, | 33
| That the turtle saw his right | 34
| Flaming in the phoenix' sight; | 35
| Either was the other's mine | 36
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| | Property was thus appalled, | 37
| That the self was not the same; | 38
| Single nature's double name | 39
| Neither two nor one was called. | 40
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| | Reason, in itself confounded, | 41
| Saw division grow together, | 42
| To themselves yet either neither, | 43
| Simple were so well compounded, | 44
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| | That it cried, How true a twain | 45
| Seemeth this concordant one! | 46
| Love hath reason, reason none, | 47
| If what parts can so remain | 48
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| | Whereupon it made this threne | 49
| To the phoenix and the dove, | 50
| Co-supremes and stars of love, | 51
| As chorus to their tragic scene | 52
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| | THRENOS | 53
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| | Beauty, truth, and rarity, | 54
| Grace in all simplicity, | 55
| Here enclosed in cinders lie | 56
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| | Death is now the phoenix' nest | 57
| And the turtle's loyal breast | 58
| To eternity doth rest, | 59
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| | Leaving no posterity: | 60
| 'Twas not their infirmity, | 61
| It was married chastity | 62
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| | Truth may seem, but cannot be: | 63
| Beauty brag, but 'tis not she; | 64
| Truth and beauty buried be. | 65
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| | To this urn let those repair | 66
| That are either true or fair | 67
| For these dead birds sigh a prayer | 68
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