Love
Diana: First Decade, Sonnet 8
From Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles, ed. M. F. Crow (1896)
Much sorrow in itself my love doth move,
More my despair to love a hopeless bliss,
My folly most to love whom sure to miss
O help me, but this last grief to remove;
All pains, if you command, it joy shall prove,
And wisdom to seek joy. Then say but this,
"Because my pleasure in thy torment is,
I do command thee without hope to love!"
So when this thought my sorrow shall augment
That my own folly did procure my pain,
Then shall I say to give myself content,
"Obedience only made me love in vain.
It was your will, and not my want of wit;
I have the pain, bear you the blame of it!"
Cite this poem
MLA
Constable, Henry. “Diana: First Decade, Sonnet 8.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/constable/9/.
Chicago
Constable, Henry. “Diana: First Decade, Sonnet 8.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/constable/9/.
Read this poem with the Codex →