The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Eight (Shakespeare)

William Shakespeare

AKA The Bard

The Chandos Portrait

As was so cleverly stated this morning by my friend Dave Hoing, "Unfortunately, the only present Shakespeare got for his 52nd birthday was a death certificate." He'd be 448 years old today. With what he accomplished in those 52 years, you'd think he did live to be 448. Now, in celebration of his birth and in mourning for his death, I'd like to memorize one of my favorite Shakespeare poems, "Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds."


As always, please feel free to leave comments about the poems or your experience of memorizing them. It's a huge inspiration to me to hear what you think! Here is last week's posting, if you want to leave comments on Kay Ryan's "Green Behind the Ears": The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Seven. Also, if you're new to the blog, please check out the first Mnemosyne Post to find out what this project is all about. And feel free to suggest poems! I always learn the most from the poems I would have never thought to select myself.


Have a great week, everyone. May our time between the stanzas be filled with joy!


Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds


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-fixèd 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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.