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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  The Fifth Decade. Sonnet X. Prometheus for stealing living fire

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Diana

The Fifth Decade. Sonnet X. Prometheus for stealing living fire

Henry Constable (1562–1613)

PROMETHEUS for stealing living fire

From heaven’s king, was judged eternal death;

In self-same flame, with unrelenting ire,

Bound fast to Caucasus’ low foot beneath.

So I, for stealing living beauty’s fire

Into my verse, that it may always live;

And change his forms to shapes of my desire:

Thou beauty’s Queen! self sentence like dost give!

Bound to thy feet, in chains of love I lie;

For to thine eyes, I never dare aspire:

And in thy beauty’s brightness do I fry,

As poor PROMETHEUS in the scalding fire.

Which tears maintain, as oil the lamp revives;

Only my succour in thy favour lies.