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Let the bird of loudest lay,

On the sole Arabian tree,

Herald sad and trumpet be,

To whose sound chaste wings obey.


But thou, shriking harbinger,

Foul pre-currer 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,

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 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.


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

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 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:

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.


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 hath reason, reason none

If what parts can so remain.


Whereupon it made this threne

To the phoenix and the dove,

Co-supreme 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.


Death is now the phoenix' nest;

And the turtle's loyal breast

To eternity doth rest,


Leaving no posterity:--

'Twas not their infirmity,

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

That are either true or fair;

For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

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