Sonnet 116. (Translation) . Poem by Michael Walker

It is interesting to compare 'Sonnet 116' with 'Breath of a Rose', by Langston Hughes. Both poems are about the nature and qualities of love, considered generally. Hughes concentrates on the beauty of love, its fragility and its lasting only a short time-then love is gone.
Shakespeare writes of love as permanent, steadfast, and never-changing in different situations. Love is 'the marriage of true minds'. It is like having one love for life, being faithful.
On reflection, both Hughes and Shakespeare are right in different ways. Some men, like Hughes himself, have many different girlfriends and partners, going from one to another. Some men get married six or seven times in a life-time. This sort of love with different partners is real for many people and is a valid, legitimate lifestyle today and in Hughes's time. Probably all times.
Shakespeare is right because he is focussing on men who have one lover for life; They are faithful and happy with one partner. They may well be married, having taken vows to each other, but may be just 'partners'. This latter is very common today.
Shakespeare invented the sonnet type named after him: 14 lines divided into 3 quatrains and a final couplet. In this sonnet, the rhyme scheme is: abab/cdcd/efef/ gg. Very neat and planned, but still sounding natural.
Both poems are about the eternal topic of love, which is just as important today as in the sixteenth century. Which one is better is a matter of opinion, I think.