by William Shakespeare
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 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 prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
Jan 16, 2017
Jan 16, 2017 at 9:04 AM UTC
by William Shakespeare
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 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 prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
This poem, one of the most justly famous in our language, offers what I consider one of the most beautiful uses of enjambment (see the italicized lines).
Enjambment is when a line splits in the midst of a grammatical unit (such as a phrase).
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