How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? (1-2)
His current love is so life-changing that the speaker can't imagine how he lived without it. The "by my troth," an old way of intensifying what comes after, making it clear that this is partly hyperbole. Of course, they did things before finding each other. But the deeper, sweeter point remains: [cue Andrew Lloyd Webber] "yes, love, love changes everything."
Quote #2
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere (10-11)
It's a small poem but it makes a big claim: erotic love is the most powerful kind of love. Why? It's obsessive and consuming, turning your attention away from everything else and focusing it on a single person. As a result, that one person becomes a substitute for everything else and your shared love creates its own universe.
Quote #3
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one (14)
Nothing makes you more exciting, beautiful, brave, devilishly sexy, and endlessly entertaining as being in love. Once you're loved enough, you become like an alternate (and way better) reality to your lover. You're family, Facebook, Chipotle, and summer evenings on the beach all wrapped up in one.
Quote #4
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest (16)
There's Sarah, plain and tall, who lived on the plains once she moved out west, and then there's hearts, true and plain, that live in faces. Following this? These hearts aren't bad-looking; they're just honest and open. In fact, they're so honest and open that they can be read directly from someone's expression. If you're in love, it's written all over your face!
Quote #5
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west? (17-18)
In this geographic conceit, the speaker describes a couple as a whole made up of two hemispheres. But love one-ups the actual earth by deleting all the less-than-awesome stuff. Arctic circle? Who needs it? (It's melting anyway.) How about stuff out west? Sunsets make get us all sentimental, but really they're just the beginning of night—darkness, nightmares, shops closed. Love makes a perfect world by editing out the coldness (the north) and the darkness (the west).
Quote #6
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die (20-21)
So love makes people into worlds and contracts vast amounts of space into a 300-square-foot bedroom. It's pretty boss, no question. But things get seriously awesome in the final two lines. Here the speaker claims that perfect love—the kind that's balanced, mutual, and honest—will never weaken and never die. Yep, it's immortal.