Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 is a testament to the abiding power of love. These lines mean that time cannot change love. Father Time, the personification of time, is often pictured with a scythe, or a sickle, which is a bent instrument used to harvest grain. The sickle destroys the rosy lips and cheeks of the young as if it were cutting down grain, but it cannot change love. In other words, people's outer appearances change, and they look older as time goes on, but love is not affected by these outer changes.

Instead, love lasts to the end of time, and it does not change within weeks or days. Love lasts until the end of doom, which refers to the apocalypse, or the very end of the universe. These lines express the idea that, although one's looks might change over time, love is not changeable.

Ah, isn't this poem great? This sequence of lines—this quatrain—should be read in the context of the entire poem. The first four lines say, there can be no barrier to true love. The next four say, true love doesn't change, and is so firm that others can navigate by it. The next four (the four asked about) say that true love will not change with time, even if the red lips and cheeks of the young do change. True love lasts, these lines say, until death.

Greg