William Shakespeare's Sonnet #116

 

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, this

number 116.:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments; love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his

height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy

lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and

weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

    If this be error and upon me proved,

    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

The poem with the stressed

syllables underlined:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments; love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his

height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy

lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and

weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

    If this be error and upon me proved,

    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

© C.A. MacLennan 2024

You can see videos of me reading poems at:

Poetry & Folklore - YouTube