| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Diana | The Seventh Decade
Sonnet V. Had she not been so excellently fair | | Henry Constable (1562–1613) |
| | | HAD she not been so excellently fair, | |
| My Muse had never mourned in lines of woe: | |
| But I did too too inestimable weigh her, | |
| And that’s the cause I now lament me so. | |
| Yet not for her contempt do I complain me | 5 |
| (Complaints may ease the mind, but that is all); | |
| Therefore though she too constantly disdain me, | |
| I can but sigh and grieve, and so I shall. | |
| Yet grieve I not, because I must grieve ever; | |
| And yet, alas, waste tears away in vain. | 10 |
| I am resolved truly to persèver, | |
| Though she persisteth in her old disdain. | |
| But that which grieves me most, is that I see | |
| Those which most fair, the most unkindest be. | | | | |
|
|
