Self-blinding error

1. Self-blinding error seizeth all those minds
Who with false appellations call that ‘love’*
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or with the mọver hath a pow’r to mọve –
Not much unlike the heretic’s pretence,
That cites true scripṯure but prevents the sense.

2. O no, love is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests but is never shak’n;
It is the star to everȳ wand’ring barque,
Whose wȯrth’s unknown, although his height be tak’n:
No mountebank with eye-deluding flashes,
But flaming martyr in his holȳ ashes.

3. Love’s not time’s fool, though rosȳ lips and cheeks
Within his binding circle compass round;
Love alters not with his brief ho͞u͞rs and weeks,
But holds it out e’en to the edge of dọom.
If this be error and not truth apprọved,
Cupid’s no god, nor man ne’er loved.