“Sonnet” – A small poem which follow a strict pattern or rhyming scheme.
I have never heard one before, cause I am not much into literature. Yesterday when my Sissy said the whole sonnet 116, I suddenly realized the beauty of it. The words are really beautiful and so is the meaning behind them. So here it is…
Shakespeare’s 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-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.
Explanation in modern English: I would not admit that anything could interfere with the union of two people who love each other. Love that alters with changing circumstances is not love, nor if it bends from its firm state when someone tries to destroy it. Oh no, it's an eternally fixed point that watches storms but is never itself shaken by them. It is the star by which every lost ship can be guided: one can calculate it's distance but not gauge its quality. Love doesn't depend on Time, although the rosy lips and cheeks of youth eventually come within the compass of Time's sickle. Love doesn't alter as the days and weeks go by but endures until death. If I'm wrong about this then I've never written anything and no man has ever loved.