Sonnet LXVII. Like as a huntsman after weary chase

Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)

LIKE as a huntsman after weary chase,

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.