Love

Thus am I free from laws that other bind

by Anonymous (Elizabethan miscellanies) c. 1575–1602

From A Poetical Rhapsody (1602), ed. A. H. Bullen (1890–91)

Love

Thus am I free from laws that other bind,
Who divers verse to divers matter frame;
All kind of styles do serve my Lady's name;
What they in all the world, in her I find.
The lofty verse doth show her noble mind,
By which she quencheth love's enraged flame;
Sweet lyrics sing her heavenly beauty's fame;
The tender elege speaks her pity kind.
In mournful tragic verse for her I die;
In comic she revives me with her eye:
All serve my Goddess both for mirth and moan;
Each look she casts doth breed both peace and strife;
Each word she speaks doth cause both death and life;
Out of myself I live in her alone.

✦ ✦ ✦

Third of the "Three Sonnets for a Proem" to the poems of "A. W."

MLA

Anonymous (Elizabethan miscellanies). “Thus am I free from laws that other bind.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-miscellanies/53/.

Chicago

Anonymous (Elizabethan miscellanies). “Thus am I free from laws that other bind.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-miscellanies/53/.

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