The Seventh Decade. Sonnet IV. When tedious much, and over weary long

Henry Constable (1562–1613)

WHEN tedious much, and over weary long,

Cruel disdain, reflecting from her brow,

Hath been the cause that I endured such wrong;

And rest thus discontent and weary now.

Yet when posterity, in time to come,

Shall find th’uncancelled tenour of her vow;

And her disdain be then confest of some,

How much unkind and long, I find it now.

O yet even then (though then, will be too late

To comfort me; dead, many a day, ere then),

They shall confess—I did not force her heart:

And time shall make it known to other men—

That ne’er had her disdain made me despair,

Had she not been so excellently fair.