| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Astrophel and Stella | | 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; | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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. | | | | |
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