| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Diana | The Seventh Decade
Sonnet I. The First Created held a joyous bower | | Henry Constable (1562–1613) |
| | | THE FIRST Created held a joyous bower, | |
| A flowering field, the world’s sole wonderment, | |
| Hight Paradise; from whence a woman’s power | |
| Enticed him fall to endless banishment. | |
| This on the banks of Euphrates did stand, | 5 |
| Till the first Mover, by His wondrous might, | |
| Planted it in thine eyes! thy face! thy hands! | |
| From whence the world receives his fairest light. | |
| Thy cheeks contains choice flowers; thy eyes, two suns; | |
| Thy hands, the fruit that no life blood can stain; | 10 |
| And in thy breath, that heavenly music wons; | |
| Which, when thou speak’st, angels their voices strain. | |
| As from the first, thy Sex exilèd me! | |
| So to this next, let me be called by thee! | | | | |
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