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Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Hardy M. Cook
Not Peer Reviewed

The Phoenix and Turtle (Quarto, 1601)

170
1LEt the bird of lowdest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herauld sad and trumpet be:
To whose sound chaste wings obay.
5But thou shriking harbinger,
Foule precurrer of the fiend,
Augour of the feuers end,
To this troupe come thou not neere.
From this Session interdict
10Euery foule of tyrant wing,
Saue the Eagle feath'red King,
Keepe the obsequie so strict.
Let the Priest in Surples white,
That defunctiue Musicke can,
15Be the death-deuining Swan,
Lest the Requiem lacke his right.
And thou treble dated Crow,
That thy sable gender mak'st,
With the breath thou giu'st and tak'st,
20Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
Here the Antheme doth commence,
Loue and Constancie is dead,
Phoenix and the Turtle fled,
In a mutuall flame from hence.
25So they loued as loue in twaine,
Had the essence but in one,
Two
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