The Love Sonnets
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1.
How can it be that I, a humble guard
Have dared to love a Prince of royal birth?
Can I believe that with true love's regard
He'd smile on me, of all the men on earth?
When I a new-sworn royal guardsman was
I wrote of how his beauty, like the sun,
Afar off warmed me as that beacon does
And was content to see him high above.
I did not then believe, imagined not,
That ever in my arms and bed he'd lie,
Yet chamber, glade and secret bower'd spot
All now are witness unto he and I.
Could it be so, and could it ever prove,
That with his body, I might have his love?
2.
To say 'I love' should not a hardship be
Though unsure answer shakes both knees and heart,
Yet 'Love' if spoken may bring death to me
Ere answer either way unleash its dart.
Cruel fate! Not only sleepless nights in fear
That silence in response might be my fate,
Or worse the silver laugh I dread to hear,
Which other times I love, but then would hate.
Not only these, which lovers all endure
When Love all silent can no longer stay,
But speech itself leaves me of life unsure
If 'I love thee' should be the words I say.
For declarations thus bring death to me
If I mistake my lover's secrecy.
3.
'You have my love, and all my soul besides.'
A single line on scrap of paper writ,
And passed to me in secret, swift aside,
Has now forever our two souls enknit.
Did I, when at my station stood, believe
The scrap I held for hours in my hand
Would show, when I at last, alone, could read,
That all my fears were but writ in sand?
Now he, my love, has washed them all away
And left me only loving him the more
For lack of them, and now at last I say
'No longer 'Prince': from hence 'my Velebor'.'
So not in fear, but longing for his light
I, fev'rish, wait for my true love tonight.
