Shakespeare’s speaker refuses to accept that true love can be blocked or altered. Right from the start, he defines love as something that doesn’t change when circumstances change, or when a lover becomes unfaithful. Instead, he pictures love as an unwavering lighthouse, looking at storms without flinching, and as the North Star that guides lost ships—its true worth can’t be measured, even if we can chart its position. Love isn’t foolish enough to be ruled by time, even as beauty fades under the sweep of the sickle. It doesn’t alter in hours or weeks, but endures right to the edge of death. The speaker is fiercely confident, almost issuing a challenge: if he’s wrong about this, then he’s never written anything worthwhile, and no one has ever truly loved. The mood is both intense and reassuring, like a stubborn, heartfelt vow that love’s constancy is real.
Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds — Summary
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 lov'd.