Time for a sonnet, the final poem for April, National Poetry Month.
This is one of my favorites. It's proof that the sound of language is what makes a poem.
What's so special about what's said here? Briefly paraphrased: "I don't want to allow any obstacles when I describe true love. True love stays true. It doesn't change when the lover changes. It holds fast through storms. It can be compared to the way a star guides every wandering bark (ship). Love doesn't change just because people get old. It lasts forever. If this isn't true, then nothing is."
Now listen to the difference when you say the sonnet -- say it out loud. What gorgeous compression, what exact word choice, what sharp images and, most of all, what subtle yet sure rhythm, rocking just below the surface.
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;
Oh, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worths unknown, although his height be taken.
Loves not times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickles 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.
--William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Fleda Brown, of Traverse City, is professor emerita, University of Delaware, and past poet laureate of Delaware. Learn more about her on her Web site, fledabrown.com
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