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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, 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.

A LOVER'S COMPLAINT

This narrative poem was included as an appendix to the original edition of the sonnets, published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609. The poem consists of forty-seven seven-line stanzas written in the rhyme royal (with the rhyme scheme ababbcc), a metre and structure identical to that of Shakespeare's earlier poem The Rape of Lucrece.

Despite its appearance in the published collection of the sonnets, critics have often doubted its authorship. A Lover's Complaint contains many words and forms not found elsewhere in Shakespeare, including several archaisms and Latinisms, and is sometimes regarded as rhythmically and structurally awkward. Conversely, other critics have praised its quality.

A LOVER'S COMPLAINT

From off a hill whose concave womb reworded

A plaintful story from a sist'ring vale,

My spirits t'attend this double voice accorded,

And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale,

Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,

Tearing of papers, breaking rings atwain,

Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.

Upon her head a platted hive of straw,

Which fortified her visage from the sun,

Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw

The carcase of a beauty spent and done.

Time had not scythed all that youth begun,

Nor youth all quit, but spite of heaven's fell rage

Some beauty peeped through lattice of seared age.

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,

Which on it had conceited characters,

Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine

That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears,

And often reading what contents it bears;

As often shrieking undistinguished woe,

In clamours of all size, both high and low.

Sometimes her levelled eyes their carriage ride,

As they did batt'ry to the spheres intend;

Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied

To th' orbed earth; sometimes they do extend

Their view right on; anon their