Sonnets of Sensibility

Here are two sonnets which Marianne quotes in the movie Sense and Sensiblity. I found them intriguing, especially the one she associates with Willoughby. The first is spoken when Marianne goes to question Elinor about her feelings for Edward Ferrars. The second is Marianne and Willoughby's favorite sonnet and Marianne quotes when she stands on the hill overlooking his house.

Sonnet VII

By Hartley Coleridge

Is love a fancy, or a feeling? No.

It is immortal as immaculate Truth,

'Tis not a blossom shed as soon as youth,

Drops from the stem of life--for it will grow,

In barren regions, where no waters flow,

Nor rays of promise cheats the pensive gloom.

A darkling fire, faint hovering o'er a tomb,

That but itself and darkness nought doth show,

It is my love's being yet it cannot die,

Nor will it change, though all be changed beside;

Though fairest beauty be no longer fair,

Though vows be false, and faith itself deny,

Though sharp enjoyment be a suicide,

And hope a spectre in a ruin bare.

SONNET 116
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.