Sonnet 116, 56

by William Shakespeare

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 prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sonnet 56

Sweet love, renew thy force be it not said 
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, 
Which but to-day by feeding is allayed, 
To-morrow sharpened in his former might.
So, love, be thou, although to-day thou fill 
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fullness,
To-morrow see again, and do not kill 
The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.
Let this sad interim like the ocean be 
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new
Come daily to the banks, that, when they see: 
Return of love, more blest may be the view; 
Or call it winter, which being full of care 
Makes summer's welcome thrice more wished, more rare.