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 worths 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.

WS