Sonnet CXVI: Let me not to the Marriage of True Minds

Shakespeare, William (1564 - 1616)

Original Text

William Shakespeare, Shake-speares sonnets (London: G. Eld for T. T., 1609). STC 22353. Facs. edn.: London: J. Cape, 1925. PR 2750 B48 1609b ROBA.

1Let me not to the marriage of true minds

2Admit impediments. Love is not love

3Which alters when it alteration finds,

4Or bends with the remover to remove.

5O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

6That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

7It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

8Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

9Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

10Within his bending sickle's compass come;

11Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

12But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

13If this be error and upon me prov'd,

14I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

Notes

4] remover: the one who departs from love. Back to Line

8] worth's unknown: man cannot grasp the star's heavenly worth and astrological infuence. Back to Line

12] edge of doom: the brink of Doomsday. Back to Line

Publication Start Year

1609

RPO poem Editors

F. D. Hoeniger

RPO Edition

3RP 1.143.

Rhyme

ababcdcdefefgg

Form

sonnet