Shakespeare's Love Sonnet
by Bonnie Barry
Title
Shakespeare's Love Sonnet
Artist
Bonnie Barry
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
One of my favorite poems ever is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116. I think it describes unconditional love as well as humans beings can put it into words. It’s a reminder that love is not a sentiment or a good feeling but an act of the will that chooses to remain faithfully at a beloved’s side, no matter what comes. I would like to dedicate this to my friend Shirley and her husband Norwood. In 1998, at the age of 51, Norwood suffered a stroke and was severely debilitated, requiring round the clock nursing care. He remained this way for fifteen years. This past Sunday, on February 17, 2013, he died. Medical personnel said that had it not been for the incredible love of his wife Shirley, who stood by him all those years, doing everything humanly possible to ease his burdens, there is no way he would have endured that long. During that time, pressure was put on her to send him to a nursing home, but she would not allow it. She insisted he must be home so home he stayed with the greatest care and ministrations. When the couple celebrated a milestone anniversary last year, Shirley had 50 people in their home for a lively party. She told me, “The love was so intense you could feel it!” I could feel that same love yesterday at Norwood’s funeral. I think Shirley and Norwood epitomize Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116; it could well have been written just for them or by them!
Here it is:
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 wand’ring 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.
William Shakespeare
Uploaded
February 20th, 2013
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