| Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900. |
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| William Shakespeare. 1564–1616 |
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162. Sonnets
xviii |
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| 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. | |
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