1.
Self-blinding error seizeth all those minds
Who with false appellations call that ‘love’
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or with the mover hath a power to move –
Not much unlike the heretic’s pretence,
That cites true scripture but prevents the sense.
2.
O no, love is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests but is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken:
No mountebank with eye-deluding flashes,
But flaming martyr in his holy ashes.
3.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his binding circle compass round;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But holds it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and not truth approved,
Cupid’s no god, nor man ne’er loved.