SONNET CXVI

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 tempest 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 ;
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.

William SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)