Love-Sonnet (I.)

O MADAM, you are of all women true,

Nay virtue’s self, that’s more, for only you

Are that which we imagine to be she;

You, and but you, make virtue here to be;

You, who by binding make us truly free,

Whose only bondman lives in liberty;

You, in which happy word all things are meant

Excepting wickedness and punishment.

You, that are you, which I love more than I,

In whom my soul can rest, yet I not die;

Nay lives, by being there, for that’s his place,

I, but a cabinet that keeps your face

Or model in my heart, for all that’s I

May in your picture live, in you must die.