Inspired by Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Rossetti imagined Mariana to be working on and embroidery distracted by the boy's song, and on the painting's frame is inscribed:

Take O take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again,
Bring again;
Seals of love, but seal'd in vain
Seal'd in vain.