II.
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 lovèd 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.
III.
Let dainty wits cry on the Sisters nine,
That bravely maskt, their fancies may be told;
Or PINDAR's apes flaunt they in phrases fine,
Enamelling with pied flowers their thoughts of gold;
Or else let them in statelier glory shine,
Ennobling new-found tropes with problems old;
Or with strange similes enrich each line,
Of herbs or beasts which Inde or Afric hold:
For me, in sooth, no Muse but one I know.
Phrases and problems from my reach do grow,
And strange things cost too dear for my poor sprites.
How then? Even thus. In STELLA's face I read
What love and beauty be. Then all my deed
But copying is, what in her Nature writes.
