Let Me Not to That Marriage: A Shakespeare Remix

Let Me Not to that Marriage:
A Shakespeare Remix
by Gideon Burton
in imitation of Shakespeare's Sonnet #116 (below)

Let's talk about the marriage of true minds:
admit it: the impediments make love
a sport, less stagnant when stagnation finds
the bland ennui of love's routine, that groove
that is an ever-fixed rut, that stark
vanilla boredom better stirred and shaken.
Good lovers love a tempest's test, a spark
of lightning lightening the granted taken.
Love lets us be Time's fools, to mate and seek
Spring love when mating makes the children come.
Love alters as we watch the toddlers peek
across the threshold toward bride and groom.
     If I were falsely constant to the past,
     our ripening love through error would be smashed.


Sonnet 116
by William Shakespeare

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-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering 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.

Photo: flickr - Lindy Drew Photography