| ORDER | PART | VERSE | CHARACTER | LINE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | POET | Let the bird of loudest lay, On the sole Arabian tree, Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey. | |
| 2 | 1 | 2 | POET | But thou shrieking harbinger, Foul precurrer of the fiend, Augur of the fever's end, To this troop come thou not near! | |
| 3 | 1 | 3 | POET | From this session interdict Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, feather'd king: Keep the obsequy so strict. | |
| 4 | 1 | 4 | POET | Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can, Be the death-divining swan, Lest the requiem lack his right. | |
| 5 | 1 | 5 | POET | And thou treble-dated crow, That thy sable gender makest With the breath thou givest and takest, 'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go. | |
| 6 | 1 | 6 | POET | Here the anthem doth commence: Love and constancy is dead; Phoenix and the turtle fled In a mutual flame from hence. | |
| 7 | 1 | 7 | POET | So they loved, as love in twain Had the essence but in one; Two distincts, division none: Number there in love was slain. | |
| 8 | 1 | 8 | POET | Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance, and no space was seen 'Twixt the turtle and his queen: But in them it were a wonder. | |
| 9 | 1 | 9 | POET | So between them love did shine, That the turtle saw his right Flaming in the phoenix' sight; Either was the other's mine. | |
| 10 | 1 | 10 | POET | Property was thus appalled, That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was called. | |
| 11 | 1 | 11 | POET | Reason, in itself confounded, Saw division grow together, To themselves yet either neither, Simple were so well compounded, | |
| 12 | 1 | 12 | POET | That it cried, How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love hath reason, reason none, If what parts can so remain. | |
| 13 | 1 | 13 | POET | Whereupon it made this threne To the phoenix and the dove, Co-supremes and stars of love, As chorus to their tragic scene. | |
| 14 | 1 | 14 | POET | THRENOS. | |
| 15 | 1 | 15 | POET | Beauty, truth, and rarity, Grace in all simplicity, Here enclosed in cinders lie. | |
| 16 | 1 | 16 | POET | Death is now the phoenix' nest And the turtle's loyal breast To eternity doth rest, | |
| 17 | 1 | 17 | POET | Leaving no posterity: 'Twas not their infirmity, It was married chastity. | |
| 18 | 1 | 18 | POET | Truth may seem, but cannot be: Beauty brag, but 'tis not she; Truth and beauty buried be. | |
| 19 | 1 | 19 | POET | To this urn let those repair That are either true or fair For these dead birds sigh a prayer. |