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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  162. Sonnets xviii

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

William Shakespeare. 1564–1616

162. Sonnets xviii

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,         5
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;  10
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.