The cock that treads them shall not know.
Have you not heard it said full oft,
A woman's nay doth stand for nought?
Think women still to strive with men,
To sin and never for to saint:
Here is no heaven; be holy then,
When time with age shall thee attaint.
Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed.
But, soft! enough-too much, I fear-
Lest that my mistress hear my song;
She will not stick to round me i' the ear,

To teach my tongue to be so long:
Yet will she blush, here be it said,
To hear her secrets so bewray'd.

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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,

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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 enclos'd in cinders lie.

Death is now the phoenix' nest;
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,

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

Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but 't is 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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