Let not my love be called idolatry,
Love is my sin, that my dear virtue hates:
His eyes I love, yet they do pity me.
Should God forbid, that made me first his slave?

How careful was I when I took my way?
What potions hath he drunk of siren tears?
I ne’re survived that well-contented day,
When his soul check’d me, that I came so near!

Who will my verse believe in time to come?
For as this careful housewife runs to catch
Him, who hath the pow’r to hurt and will do none.
Lord of my love. I serve in vassalage!

Sweet love, renew thy force, be it not said
That spent with toil, I faltered in thy bed.
Source text: All lines in this sonnet have been adapted from the index of first lines of a volume Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Liùsaidh is a poet and author from the West of Scotland. Writing from a crack-ridden council estate, the poems are always strange. You can find them online and in print, most recently in Unlost Journal, and The Ghazal Page.