The Phoenix and the Turtle

A poem in modern spelling. Stanzas follow the public-domain text.

Stanza 1

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

But shrieking harbinger,
Foul precurrer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever’s end,
To this troop come 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-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.

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

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

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 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;
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.

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 reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.

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

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 rest.

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

Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but 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.

Modern spelling for reading. The edition is public domain in the United States. Edition source.