"I could almost fancy that I saw him standing in the shadow of my room, so well had Shakespeare drawn him, with his golden hair, his tender flower-like grace, his dreamy deep silken eyes, his delicate mobile limbs, and his white lily hands. His very name fascinated me. Willie Hughes! Willie Hughes! How musically it sounded! Yes; who else but he could have been the master-mistress of Shakespeare's passion,¹ the lord of his love to whom he was bound in vassalage,² the delicate minion of pleasure,³ the rose of the whole world,⁴ the herald of the spring⁵ decked in proud livery of youth,⁶ the lovely boy whom it was sweet music to hear,⁷ and whose beauty was the very raiment of Shakespeare's heart,⁸ as it was the keystone of his dramatic power? How bitter now seemed the whole tragedy of his desertion and his shame! -- shame that he made sweet and lovely⁹ by the mere magic of his personality, but that was none the less shame. Yet as Shakespeare forgave him, should not we forgive him also? I did not care to pry into the mystery of his sin."

-- Oscar Wilde, The Portrait of Mr. W.H.

¹ Sonnet xx. 2. ² Sonnet xxvi. 1. ³ Sonnet cxxvi. 9. ⁴ Sonnet cix. 14. ⁵ Sonnet i. 10. ⁶ Sonnet ii. 3. ⁷ Sonnet viii. 1. ⁸ Sonnet xxii. 6. ⁹ Sonnet xcv. 1.