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THE PHŒNIX AND THE TURTLE - William Shakespeare, The Poems and Glossary (Oxford ed.) [1916]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (The Oxford Shakespeare), ed. with a glossary by W.J. Craig M.A. (London: Oxford University Press, 1916).

Part of: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (The Oxford Shakespeare)

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THE PHŒNIX AND THE TURTLE

    • Let the bird of loudest lay,
    • On the sole Arabian tree,
    • Herald sad and trumpet be,
    • To whose sound chaste wings obey.4
    • But thou shrieking harbinger,
    • Foul precurrer of the fiend,
    • Augur of the fever’s end,
    • To this troop come thou not near.8
    • From this session interdict
    • Every fowl of tyrant wing,
    • Save the eagle, feather’d king:
    • Keep the obsequy so strict.12
    • Let the priest in surplice white
    • That defunctive music can,
    • Be the death-divining swan,
    • Lest the requiem lack his right.16
    • 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.20
    • Here the anthem doth commence:
    • Love and constancy is dead;
    • Phœnix and the turtle fled
    • In a mutual flame from hence.24
    • So they lov’d, as love in twain
    • Had the essence but in one;
    • Two distincts, division none:
    • Number there in love was slain.28
    • Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
    • Distance, and no space was seen
    • ’Twixt the turtle and his queen:
    • But in them it were a wonder.32
    • So between them love did shine,
    • That the turtle saw his right
    • Flaming in the phœnix’ sight;
    • Either was the other’s mine.36
    • Property was thus appall’d,
    • That the self was not the same;
    • Single nature’s double name
    • Neither two nor one was call’d.40
    • Reason, in itself confounded,
    • Saw division grow together;
    • To themselves yet either neither,
    • Simple were so well compounded,44
    • That it cried, ‘How true a twain
    • Seemeth this concordant one!
    • Love hath reason, reason none,
    • If what parts can so remain.’48
    • Whereupon it made this threne
    • To the phœnix and the dove,
    • Co-supremes and stars of love,
    • As chorus to their tragic scene.52

  • THRENOS.

    • Beauty, truth, and rarity
    • Grace in all simplicity,
    • Here enclos’d in cinders lie.55
    • Death is now the phœnix’ nest;
    • And the turtle’s loyal breast
    • To eternity doth rest,58
    • Leaving no posterity:
    • ’Twas not their infirmity,
    • It was married chastity.61
    • Truth may seem, but cannot be;
    • Beauty brag, but ’tis not she;
    • Truth and beauty buried be.64
    • To this urn let those repair
    • That are either true or fair;
    • For these dead birds sigh a prayer.67