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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  The Fifth Decade. Sonnet III. If ever Sorrow spoke from soul that loves

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Diana

The Fifth Decade. Sonnet III. If ever Sorrow spoke from soul that loves

Henry Constable (1562–1613)

IF ever Sorrow spoke from soul that loves,

As speaks a spirit in a man possest;

In me, her spirit speaks. My soul it moves,

Whose sigh-swoll’n words breed whirlwinds in my breast:

Or like the echo of a passing bell,

Which sounding on the water, seems to howl;

So rings my heart a fearful heavy knell,

And keeps all night in consort with the owl.

My cheeks with a thin ice of tears are clad,

Mine eyes like morning stars are bleared and red:

What resteth then, but I be raging mad,

To see that She, my cares’ chief conduit-head,

When all streams else help quench my burning heart,

Shuts up her springs; and will no grace impart.