The Fifth Decade. Sonnet IX. Whilst Echo cries, “What shall become of me?”

Henry Constable (1562–1613)

WHILST ECHO cries, “What shall become of me?”

And desolate, my desolations pity:

Thou in thy beauty’s carrack sitt’st, to see

My tragic downfall, and my funeral ditty.

No timbrel, but my heart thou play’st upon,

Whose strings are stretched unto the highest key.

The diapason, love. Love is the unison;

In love, my life and labours waste away.

Only regardless, to the world thou leav’st me,

Whilst slain HOPES, turning from the feast of sorrow,

Unto DESPAIR, their King, which ne’er deceives me,

Captives my heart, (whose black night hates the morrow)

And he, in truth of my distressed cry,

Plants me a weeping star within mine eye.