Poetry · Chapter
CXXIV explained
The speaker asserts that his love is not subject to fortune or time, but stands firm and unchanging, immune to political machinations and temporal decay.
What happens
The speaker asserts that his love is not subject to fortune or time, but stands firm and unchanging, immune to political machinations and temporal decay.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Desire
The speaker's love is portrayed as constant and immune to external forces.
Time and Mortality
Time is presented as a powerful but ultimately irrelevant force against true love.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfather’d, As subject to Time’s love or to Time’s hate, Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather’d.”
If my love were merely a product of political circumstance, it could be disowned by Fortune and be at the mercy of Time's whims, treated like a weed or a flower.
The speaker contrasts conditional love with his own unconditional love.
“No, it was builded far from accident; It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls Under the blow of thralled discontent, Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls:”
No, my love was constructed away from chance; it is not harmed by prosperity nor destroyed by oppression, which the current age invites.
The speaker emphasizes the love's independence from external circumstances.
“It fears not policy, that heretic, Which works on leases of short-number’d hours, But all alone stands hugely politic, That it nor grows with heat nor drowns with showers.”
It does not fear political scheming, that heretic that operates on short-term leases, but stands alone and supremely wise, unaffected by heat or rain.
The love is portrayed as self-sufficient and immune to political machinations.
“To this I witness call the fools of time, Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.”
As witnesses to this truth, I call the fools of time, who die for goodness after having lived for crime.
The speaker invokes those who are deceived by time as evidence of his love's constancy.