| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Diana | The Eighth Decade
Sonnet III. ’Twill grieve me more than if thou didst disdain me | | Henry Constable (1562–1613) |
| | | ’TWILL grieve me more than if thou didst disdain me, | |
| That I should die; and thou, because I die so: | |
| And yet to die, it should not know to pain me, | |
| If cruel Beauty were content to bid so. | |
| Death, to my life; life, to my long despair | 5 |
| Prolonged by her; given to my love and days: | |
| Are means to tell how truly she is fair, | |
| And I can die to testify her praise. | |
| Yet not to die, though Fairness me despiseth, | |
| Is cause why in complaint I thus persèver; | 10 |
| Though Death me and my love imparadiseth, | |
| By interdicting me from her for ever. | |
| I do not grieve that I am forced to die, | |
| But die, to think upon the reason, “Why?” | | | | |
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