II. Not at the first sight, nor with a dribbed shot

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

NOT at the first sight, nor with a dribbed shot,

LOVE gave the wound, which while I breathe, will bleed:

But known worth did in mine of time proceed,

Till, by degrees, it had full conquest got.

I saw and liked, I liked but loved not;

I loved, but straight did not what LOVE decreed:

At length to LOVE’s decrees, I forced, agreed;

Yet with repining at so partial lot.

Now even that footstep of lost liberty

Is gone; and now, like slave-born Muscovite,

I call it praise to suffer tyranny:

And now employ the remnant of my wit

To make me self believe that all is well;

While with a feeling skill, I paint my hell.