| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Diana | The Fifth Decade
Sonnet IV. You secret vales! you solitary fields! | | Henry Constable (1562–1613) |
| | | YOU secret vales! you solitary fields! | |
| You shores forsaken! and you sounding rocks! | |
| If ever groaning heart hath made you yield, | |
| Or words half spoke that sense in prison locks; | |
| Then, ’mongst night shadows, whisper out my death! | 5 |
| That when myself hath sealed my lips from speaking, | |
| Each tell-tale echo with a weeping breath, | |
| May both record my truth and true love’s breaking. | |
| You pretty flowers! that smile for summer’s sake, | |
| Pull in your heads! before my wat’ry eyes | 10 |
| Do turn the meadows to a standing lake, | |
| By whose untimely floods, your glory dies! | |
| For lo, mine heart, resolved to moistening air, | |
| Feedeth mine eyes, which double tear for tear. | | | | |
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