Sonnet 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 wandering barque,

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.

Let me not admit that anything

Stands in the way of true love.

Love’s only love which is unfaltering.

It can’t be persuaded to leave.

No, it’s like a lighthouse

No tempest can remove.

For those lost on seas,

It’s a saving cove.

We see its reach, but it’s beyond us,

And it transcends time too.

Even once its romances pass,

It sees life all the way through.

If this is mistaken, and I am perverse:

I’ve written nothing, and all lovers curse.