The Sixth Decade. Sonnet II. To live in hell, and heaven to behold

Henry Constable (1562–1613)

TO live in hell, and heaven to behold;

To welcome life, and die a living death;

To sweat with heat, and yet be freezing cold;

To grasp at stars, and lie the earth beneath;

To tread a maze that never shall have end;

To burn in sighs, and starve in daily tears;

To climb a hill, and never to descend;

Giants to kill, and quake at childish fears;

To pine for food, and watch th’Hesperian tree:

To thirst for drink, and nectar still to draw;

To live accurs’d, whom men hold blest to be;

And weep those wrongs which never creature saw:

If this be love, if love in these be founded,

My heart is love, for these in it are grounded.