Let the bird of loudest lay |
|
On the sole Arabian tree |
|
Herald sad and trumpet be, |
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To whose sound chaste wings obey. |
|
But thou shrieking harbinger, |
5 |
Foul precurrer of the fiend, |
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Augur of the fever’s end, |
|
To this troop come thou not near. |
|
From this session interdict |
|
Every fowl of tyrant wing, |
10 |
Save the eagle, feather’d king; |
|
Keep the obsequy so strict. |
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Let the priest in surplice white, |
|
That defunctive music can, |
|
Be the death-divining swan, |
15 |
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. |
20 |
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 |
25 |
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 |
30 |
’Twixt this 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; |
35 |
Either was the other’s mine. |
|
Property was thus appalled |
|
That the self was not the same: |
|
Single nature’s double name |
|
Neither two nor one was called. |
40 |
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 |
45 |
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, |
50 |
Co-supremes 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. |
55 |
Death is now the Phoenix’ nest, |
|
And the Turtle’s loyal breast |
|
To eternity doth rest. |
|
Leaving no posterity, |
|
’Twas not their infirmity, |
60 |
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 |
65 |
That are either true or fair: |
|
For these dead birds sigh a prayer. |
|