Case Study

Sonnet 116 of William shakespear

Let me not to the marriage of true minds | Let me not declare any reasons why two |

Admit impediments. Love is not love | True-minded people should not be married. Love is not love |

Which alters when it alteration finds, | Which changes when it finds a change in circumstances, |

Or bends with the remover to remove: | Or bends from its firm stand even when a lover is unfaithful: |

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark | Oh no! it is a lighthouse |

That looks on tempests and is never shaken; | That sees storms but it never shaken; |

It is the star to every wandering bark, | Love is the guiding north star to every lost ship, |

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. | Whose value cannot be calculated, although its altitude can be measured. |

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks | Love is not at the mercy of Time, though physical beauty |

Within his bending sickle's compass come: | Comes within the compass of his sickle. |

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, | Love does not alter with hours and weeks, |

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. | But, rather, it endures until the last day of life. |

If this be error and upon me proved, | If I am proved wrong about these thoughts on love |

I never writ, nor no man ever loved. | Then I recant all that I have written, and no man has ever [truly] loved. |

Max Ehrmann Author profile

born in Indiana, The United States September 26, 1872

diedSeptember 09, 1945

gendermale

genrePoetry

About this author edit data

Max Ehrmann (September 26, 1872 - September 9, 1945), an attorney from Indiana, was best known for writing the prose poem "Desiderata" (Latin: "things desired as essential") in 1927.

Ehrmann, who was of German descent, received a degree in English from DePauw University, followed by a degree in Philosophy from Harvard University. He then returned to his hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana to practice law....