1. Sonnet 116
Shakespeare
People who think alike
1. Let me not to the marriage of true minds
difficulties / flaws
2. Admit impediments. Love is not love
If change comes, you do not fall out of love.
3. Which alters when it alteration finds,
If you truly love someone, distance will not alter your love.
4. Or bends with the remover to remove:
metaphor; refers to lighthouse.
5. O, no! it’s an ever-fixed mark,
love will not disappear if there are disagreements. Tempests = storms.
6. That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
we don’t fully understand love. It remains a mystery.
7. It is the star to every wandering bark,
8. Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
personification Time does not influence the intensity of love.
9. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
(time) death carries a sickle with which he cuts away your youth
10. Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love lasts forever.
11. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
12. But bears it out even to the edge of doom
If he is proven wrong, then he will withdraw everything he wrote and that nobody has ever truly loved.
13. If this be error, and upon me prov’d
14. I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
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, Paraphrase:
1. Let me not declare any reasons why two
2. true-minded people should not be married. Love is not love
3. which changes when it finds change in circumstances,
4. or bends from its firm stand even when a lover is unfaithful.
5. Oh no! it is a lighthouse
6. that sees storms but is never shaken.
7. Love is the guiding north star to every lost ship,
8. whose value cannot be calculated, although its altitude
(height) can be measured.
9. Love is not at the mercy of Time, though physical beauty
10. comes within the compass (range) of his sickle.
11. Love does not alter with hours and weeks,
12. But, rather, it endures till the last day of life.
13. If I am proved wrong about these thoughts on love
14. Then I withdraw all that I have written, and no man has ever
(truly) loved.
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, 2. On his blindness
John Milton
(life; time left to see)
1. When I consider how my light is spent
Before “dark world” – he is blind. Alliteration: at end of sentence to emphasise “dark”
everything seems endless.
2. Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
what is precious to him and God. Like man in Bible, he buried talent and did not use it.
3. And that one talent which is death to hide
stuck with a talent he can’t use. His soul is determined to use the talent.
4. Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
(God) give true representation of his accomplishments
5. To serve therewith my maker, and present
metaphor for money. Unless God God will return
6. My true account, lest he returning chide,
poet wonders if God is fair in expecting him to make something of his talent if he is blind.
metaphor: God compared to employer.
7. ‘Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?’
change comes Patience = personified.
8. I fondly ask; but Patience, to prevent
God does not need work/gifts.
9. That murmur, soon replies, ‘God doth not need
10. Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
blindness. If he accepts and works with his blindness, he serves God well.
11. Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
12. Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed
13. And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
you don’t have to travel the world to serve God, you can also stand and wait and serve God.
14. They also serve who only stand and wait.’
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