The Phoenix and the Turtle

William Shakespeare

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[Collins edition]






Let the bird of loudest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.


But thou, shrieking harbinger,
Foul pre-currer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever's end,
To this troop come thou not near.


From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather'd king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.


Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-defying swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.


And thou, treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak'st
With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,
'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.


Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.


So they lov'd, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.


Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance, and no space was seen
'Twixt the turtle and his queen;
But in them it were a wonder.


So between them love did shine,
That the turtle saw his right
Flaming in the phoenix' sight:
Either was the other's mine.


Property was thus appall'd,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was call'd.


Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either-neither,
Simple were so well compounded.


That it cried how true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none
If what parts can so remain.


Whereupon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supreme and stars of love;
As chorus to their tragic scene.


       THRENOS.


Beauty, truth, and rarity.
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos'd in cinders lie.


Death is now the phoenix' nest;
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,


Leaving no posterity:—
'Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.


Truth may seem, but cannot be:
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.


To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.