The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-07-26
THE PHOENIX
 AND THE TURTLE

10 tnls 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 makest
 With the breath thou givest and
 takest.
 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 loved, as love in twain
 Had the essence but in one:
 Two distincts. division none;
 Number there in love was slaln. 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 phoenlx's sight: Either was the others mine
 Property was thus appalrd.
 That the self was not the same;
 Single natures double name
 Neither two nor one was ealrd.
 
 Saw division grow together.
 To themselves yet either neither, Simple were so we'll compounded. That it cried, How true 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 enclosed in cinders lie.
 Death is now the phoenix nest; And the turtles 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 prayer.
 
 ,f the Phoenix and the Turtle, the Phoe- nix by an easy metaphor is his love, the turtle being himself
 The Phoenix, that paragon of beauty and rarity he ingeniously merges into one person with the truth and fidelity oi himself the turtle, which expires with the Phoenix in his translation to renewed life. There is no greater. impropriety pr incongruity between the love that ob- tains in the poem between the Phoenix and the Turtle, than in that which ob tained between the poet and his lovely youth in the sonnets. They are botf of a gender:
 Leaving no posterity:
 Twas not their infirmity,
 It was married chastity" The bird of loudest lay from the sole Arabian tree. proclaims the auto da fe o the Phoenix and the Turtle to which only true and faithful wings are called, ant from which all birds of prey are ex cluded except the eagle which, accord ing to the Psalmist has with the Phoenis the power of renewing it's life and youth "Who satisfieth thy mouth with goot so that thy youth Is renewed like the eagle" accomplished, according to Spenser by a plunge into the sea "As the eagle fresh out of the ocean way' Where he hath left his plumes all hoar,
 grey.
 And decks himself with plumes all youth
 ly gay"
 This noble bird possessing this powe of regeneration Is, notwithstanding tn exclusion from the obsequies of all tyran fowl excepted. and Is considered worthy t, attend as the exponent of royalty. Tn triple-dated, sombre crow Is likewise con sidered worthy, his sables fitting tn occasion and with the estimation of tn life of the Phoenix, the ''triple-dated crow is mysteriously connected in tn accounts of the Phoenix. The swan witt It's proverbial swan song' is to dis charge the office of the priest at tn obseouies, but the detfsted raven tn duration of the life of which is llkewis connected with the duration of the If of the Phoenix; that hamburger of evil that foul precurrer of the fiend, that yer, exponent of the croaling. suborned in former and slanderer, Is to be excluded This attended the suf-consuming fire kindled by the Phoenix and the Turtle 1 consumed with it. The anthem consist ing of about eight stanzas dwells upol the mysteries of singleness of person il two; duality In one; propriety in i'm propriety proximity in distance; separa tion in oneness; love that hath reason reason without reason; eyes that se themselves the poem concluding witt a memento of the occasion consisting O five stanzas of three lines each in whicl the relations between the Phoenix an, the Turtle are reconciled, and the 1ov which the poet bore for his Phoenix i justified and sanctified; the spot upol which they are consumed together beini consecrated forever to love which Phoenix alone could entertain for a Fur tie. and which the Turtle alone coui reciprocate. and the poet has vindicate' his love for his man right fair" hi lovely youth" to whom he was wedde in married chastity" which has lief no posterity. except such as must aris out of the ashes of their fires upon tn next appearance on this earth of tha exponent of beauty, truth and rarit. which shall espouse purity as its com panion on this earth. to be consumed witl 1t upon its translation to a new life il a fire of it's own kindling.