Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
DianaThe Sixth Decade. Sonnet II. To live in hell, and heaven to behold
Henry Constable (15621613)T
To welcome life, and die a living death;
To sweat with heat, and yet be freezing cold;
To grasp at stars, and lie the earth beneath;
To tread a maze that never shall have end;
To burn in sighs, and starve in daily tears;
To climb a hill, and never to descend;
Giants to kill, and quake at childish fears;
To pine for food, and watch th’Hesperian tree:
To thirst for drink, and nectar still to draw;
To live accurs’d, whom men hold blest to be;
And weep those wrongs which never creature saw:
If this be love, if love in these be founded,
My heart is love, for these in it are grounded.