National Poetry Month, Day 23: Shakespeare

by | Apr 23, 2014 | Great Reads

A little bard–er, bird–told me it was Shakespeare’s birthday today, and I thought, perfect. Here is one of his most famous sonnets, 116, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds.” Enjoy!

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-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 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.

(Easily accessible from many websites, as well as your neighborhood Norton Anthology of English Verse)