Before Stella, the speaker treated love as a kind of delightful game. Any beauty he saw would set his “boiling sprites” racing, and he assumed that was the real thing. He laughed off the deep anguish other lovers reported, thinking they were just babies whining over a tiny pinprick. The mood is almost smug—he’s proud of his light, painless version of romance. But the moment he glimpses Stella, his entire understanding collapses. He compares his discovery to poison: once you’ve been poisoned, you finally know what poison is. That’s how he now grasps love—not as a charming thrill but as something that enters you and stings. The feeling is no longer playful; it’s raw and irrevocable, leaving him older and sobered, holding a truth he can’t unlearn.
Sonnet XVI: In Nature Apt — Summary
In nature apt to like when I did see Beauties, which were of many carats fine, My boiling sprites did thither soon incline, And, Love, I thought that I was full of thee:
But finding not those restless flames in me, Which others said did make their souls to pine, I thought those babes of some pin's hurt did whine, By my love judging what love's pain might be.
But while I thus with this young lion played, Mine eyes (shall I say curst or blest?) beheld Stella; now she is nam'd, need more be said?
In her sight I a lesson new have spell'd, I now hav learn'd Love right, and learn'd even so, As who by being poisoned doth poison know.