Love

Diana: First Decade, Sonnet 4

by Henry Constable 156?–1604?

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

Love

A friend of mine, pitying my hopeless love,
Hoping by killing hope my love to stay,
"Let not," quoth he, "thy hope, thy heart betray;
Impossible it is her heart to move."
But sith resolvèd love cannot remove
As long as thy divine perfections stay,
Thy godhead then he sought to take away.
Dear, seek revenge and him a liar prove;
Gods only do impossibilities.
"Impossible," saith he, "thy grace to gain."
Show then the power of divinities
By granting me thy favour to obtain.
So shall thy foe give to himself the lie;
A goddess thou shall prove, and happy I!

MLA

Constable, Henry. “Diana: First Decade, Sonnet 4.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/constable/5/.

Chicago

Constable, Henry. “Diana: First Decade, Sonnet 4.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/constable/5/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

More by Henry Constable