Love

Diana: Second Decade, Sonnet 8

by Henry Constable 156?–1604?

From Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles, ed. M. F. Crow (1896)

Love

The fowler hides as closely as he may
The net, where caught the silly bird should be,
Lest he the threatening poison should but see,
And so for fear be forced to fly away.
My lady so, the while she doth assay
In curlèd knots fast to entangle me,
Put on her veil, to th' end I should not flee
The golden net wherein I am a prey.
Alas, most sweet! what need is of a net
To catch a bird that is already ta'en?
Sith with your hand alone you may it get,
For it desires to fly into the same.
What needs such art my thoughts then to entrap,
When of themselves they fly into your lap?

MLA

Constable, Henry. “Diana: Second Decade, Sonnet 8.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/constable/19/.

Chicago

Constable, Henry. “Diana: Second Decade, Sonnet 8.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/constable/19/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

More by Henry Constable