“Sweet and lovely, sweeter than the roses in May,
And she loves me, there is nothing more I can say.”

Source: The Tale of Despereaux

Go, Lovely Rose (1664), st. 1.
Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham (1857)

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 395.

The Ways of the Rich and Great.
Notes from Life (1853)

Source: The Notebook

The Eighth Revelation, Chapter 18

Variant: Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name. Nothing.
Source: The Tale of Despereaux (2004)

Si on me presse de dire pourquoi je l'aimais, je sens que cela ne se peut exprimer qu'en répondant: parce que c'était lui; parce que c'était moi.
Variants: If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself.
If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.
Book I, Ch. 28
Essais (1595), Book I
Source: The Complete Essays

"The Shepherd's Wife's Song", line 1, from Mourning Garment (1590); Dyce p. 305.