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