I really love Philip Sidney. Astrophil and Stella is one of the most beautiful sonnet sequences written. It rivals my love for Shakespeare's sonnet sequence, which is saying quite a bit considering that I reread Shakespeare's sonnets every other month, and have a line from one of the sonnets tattooed on my forearm.

I'm rereading Astrophil and Stella for my thesis work, and was struck anew by the beauty of it and so I am sharing the second sonnet in the sequence below. Enjoy.

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;

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 myself believe that all is well,

While with a feeling skill I paint my hell. (1-14).