William Shakespeare's Poems

[Big-Boss]

Let the priest in surplice white
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right

[Big-Boss]

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

[Big-Boss]

Here the anthem doth commence:—
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence

[Big-Boss]

So they loved, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none;
Number there in love was slain

[Big-Boss]

Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance, and no space was seen
'Twixt the turtle and his queen:
But in them it were a wonder

[Big-Boss]

So between them love did shine,
That the turtle saw his right
Flaming in the phoenix' sight;
Either was the other's mine

[Big-Boss]

Property was thus appall'd,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was call'd

[Big-Boss]

Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either neither;
Simple were so well compounded

[Big-Boss]

That it cried, 'How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none
If what parts can so remain.'

[Big-Boss]

Whereupon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene