I'll seek to bind you in a willing fetter.

Is this presumption? Not from friend to friend,

Whose souls unite like clasping hands of lovers;

Yet can I breathe no word of love, to end

The delicate doubt that o'er the unspoken hovers.

If I were hopeless that you loved me not,

My hopeless love, confess'd, myself would flatter,

But should the blissful dream be true, I wot

That love confess'd the joy of love would shatter.

My Queen, indeed as king I'd love to lord it;