Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
Amoretti and EpithalamionSonnet LXVII. Like as a huntsman after weary chase
Edmund Spenser (1552?1599)L
Seeing the game from him escap’d away,
Sits down to rest him in some shady place,
With panting hounds beguiled of their prey:
So, after long pursuit and vain assay,
When I all weary had the chase forsook,
The gentle deer returned the self-same way,
Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brook:
There she, beholding me with milder look,
Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide;
Till I in hand her yet half trembling took,
And with her own goodwill her firmly tied.
Strange thing, me seemed, to see a beast so wild,
So goodly won, with her own will beguil’d.