RPO -- Edmund Spenser : Amoretti LXVII: Like as a Huntsman

Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)

Amoretti LXVII: Like as a Huntsman

1Like as a huntsman after weary chase,

2Seeing the game from him escap'd away,

3Sits down to rest him in some shady place,

4With panting hounds beguiled of their prey:

5So after long pursuit and vain assay,

6When I all weary had the chase forsook,

7The gentle deer return'd the self-same way,

8Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brook.

9There she beholding me with milder look,

10Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide:

11Till I in hand her yet half trembling took,

12And with her own goodwill her firmly tied.

13Strange thing, me seem'd, to see a beast so wild,

14So goodly won, with her own will beguil'd.

Notes

1] A series of eighty-eight sonnets, published in 1595 and probably written between 1592 and 1594 during the poet's wooing of Elizabeth Boyle.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Edmund Spenser, Amoretti and Epithalamion (P. S. for W. Ponsonby, 1595). STC 23076. Facs.edn. (Scolar Press, 1968). PR 2360 A5 1595E Robarts Library
First publication date: 1595
RPO poem editor: N. J. Endicott
RP edition: ,i>2RP 1.111-12.
Recent editing: 4:2002/5/23

Composition date: 1592 - 1594
Form: Spenserian Sonnet
Rhyme: ababbcbccdcdee

Other poems by Edmund Spenser