Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
William Shakespeare. 15641616144. The Phoenix 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. | |
But thou shrieking harbinger, | 5 |
Foul precurrer 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 | 10 |
Save the eagle, feather’d king: | |
Keep the obsequy so strict. | |
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 loved, 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 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; | 35 |
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. | 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. | |
BEAUTY, truth, and rarity, | |
Grace in all simplicity, | |
Here enclosed 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. |
GLOSS: can] knows. |