SONNET CXVI

Let me not to the mariage 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-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bendings sickie'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 prov'd,
I never writ, ñor no man ever lov'd.