[The following two sonnets appear for the first time in the second edition of 1592, where they are marked 31 and 30, the 30 being evidently a misprint for 32. They are not found in later editions.] VI Like as the spotless ermelin distressed Circumpassed round with filth and lothsome mud, Pines in her grief, imprisoned to her nest, And cannot issue forth to seek her good; So I invironed with a hatefull want, Look to the heavens; the heavens yield forth no grace; I search the earth, the earth I find as scant, I view myself, myself in wofull case. Heaven nor earth will not, myself cannot make A way through want to free my soul from care; But I must pine, and in my pining lurk Lest my sad looks bewray me how I fare. My fortune mantled with a cloud s'obscure, Thus shades my life so long as wants endure. VII My cares draw on mine everlasting night, In horror's sable clouds sets my life's sun; My life's sweet sun, my dearest comfort's light Shall rise no more to me whose day is done. I'll go before unto the myrtle shades, T'attend the presence of my world's dear; And there prepare her flowers that never fades, And all things fit against her coming there. If any ask me why so soon I came, I'll hide her sin and say it was my lot. In life and death I'll tender her good name; My life nor death shall never be her blot. Although this world may seem her deed to blame, The Elysian ghosts shall never know the same. DIANA BY HENRY CONSTABLE HENRY CONSTABLE The sonnet-cycle in the hands of Henry Constable seems to have been in the first place rather a record of a succession of "moment's monuments" than a single dramatic scheme, even an embryonic one. The quaint preface found in the Harleian transcript of the _Diana_ shows this, and at the same time tells what freedom was at that period allowed in the structure and dove-tailing of a sonnet-cycle. It is as follows: "The Sonnets following are divided into 3 parts, each parte contayning 3 several arguments and every argument 7 sonets. "The first parte is of variable affections of love: wherein the first 7 be of the beginning and byrth of his love; the second 7, of the prayse of his mistresse; the thyrd 7, of severall accidents hapning in the tyme of his love. "The second is the prayse of perticulars: wherein the first 7 be of the generall honoure of this ile, through the prayses of the heads thereof, the Q. of England and K. of Scots; the second 7 celebrate the memory of perticular ladies whoe the author most honoureth: the thyrd 7 be to the honoure of perticulars, presented upon severall occasions.