Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Woven Words)

   
Sonnet 116
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.
Impediments-obstacles
Tempest-violent storm

In the first quatrain the poet says that, “the marriage of true minds” is perfect and unchangeable. True love does not “admit impediments”, whatever may the obstacles, or whoever tries to interfere in their love they remain firm and go with their marriage.

In the second quatrain the poet explains love through a metaphor. He compares love to a guiding star(ever-fixed mark) to a lost ship(wand'ring bark)but it can never been shaken even by a storm or a tempest. He also says that love is invaluable and also not susceptible to time.( although his height be taken )

In the third quatrain the poet says that love cannot be fooled by time because the beauty of rosy lips and cheeks will fade but love does not. In this line, “bending sickle's compass come;” the speaker of this sonnet alludes to the medieval image of time as the grim reaper, who cuts off life with the sweep of a sickle. Love cannot be changed (Love alters not) with the passage of time (hours and weeks )it can withstand the cause of time and remains forever till the end(edge of doom).

In the last couplet the poet says whatever he has written In his sonnet 116 is very true and he confidently says that true love is unchanging. If it is proved false then he says that he must never have written a word, and no man can ever have been in love. He writes this sonnet with certainty that true love can never be changed.