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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  The First Decade. Sonnet X. Heralds at arms do three perfections quote

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Diana

The First Decade. Sonnet X. Heralds at arms do three perfections quote

Henry Constable (1562–1613)

HERALDS at arms do three perfections quote,

To wit, most fair, most rich, most glittering;

So, when those three concur within one thing,

Needs must that thing, of honour, be a note.

Lately, I did behold a rich fair coat,

Which wishèd Fortune to mine eyes did bring.

A Lordly coat, yet worthy of a King,

In which one might all these perfections note.

A field of lilies, roses “proper” bare;

Two stars “in chief”; the “crest” was waves of gold.

How glittering ’twas, might by the stars appear;

The lilies made it fair for to behold.

And RICH it was, as by the gold appeareth:

But happy he that in his arms it weareth!