Saturday, May 2, 2009

Love is not Love

"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. Oh no, it is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken."

This part of sonnet 116 is probably my favorite piece of poetry- although, granted, I am not a huge poetry person, so I definitely have not read an enormous amount. However, since I read this poem in 11th or 12th grade, it has always come back to me. I adore it. It speaks to me on some unconscious level and binds me to it. I feel like it is a part of me, like it explains who I am in some way. Like it encompasses everything I believe about love.

The poem goes on to say "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."

This second part of the poem is the half that I have not yet committed to memory, but I still love to read it. I love the way Shakespeare talks about love here. Although I'm sure people has different ideas about what he means, I choose to believe my own. I imagine someone searching, looking for love, looking for someone to spend forever with, and finally finding them- like the ship in the storm who finds the lighthouse in the distance and knows if they can only make it THAT far, they will be ok.

Today has been a day of watching sappy romances on tv (thank you oxygen channel) so I just have love on my mind. Odd, but true!

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