The Fifth Decade. Sonnet II. I do not now complain of my disgrace

Henry Constable (1562–1613)

I DO not now complain of my disgrace,

O Cruel Fair One! Fair with cruel crost:

Nor of the hour, season, time, nor place;

Nor of my foil, for any freedom lost;

Nor of my courage, by misfortune daunted;

Nor of my wit, by overweening struck;

Nor of my sense, by any sound enchanted;

Nor of the force of fiery pointed hook;

Nor of the steel that sticks within my wound;

Nor of my thoughts, by worser thoughts defaced;

Nor of the life, I labour to confound:

But I complain, that being thus disgraced,

Fired, feared, frantic, fettered, shot through, slain;

My death is such, as I may not complain.