Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Unconfigured Ad Widget

Collapse

The phoenix and the turtle

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • The phoenix and the turtle

    THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE



    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,
    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
    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 loved, 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-supremes and stars of love,
    As chorus to their tragic scene.


    THRENOS


    BEAUTY, truth, and rarity,
    Grace in all simplicity,
    Here enclosed 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.




    BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
    Never stop learning
    because life never stop Teaching
Working...
X