"I was told it was eternity and love, on my shoulder by itself."
Hi Russ,
Individually, both characters are written correctly and do mean what you mentioned - "forever" and "love".
However, because most Chinese words require compound characters nowadays, the word "forever" is more often translated into the two characters shown in the link below.
For the word "love" -- it is more often translated as "to feel attached to" specifically in a romantic sense, and not, say, the love for your parents, your siblings, for your pets, or for the world, but for one single partner who you're in love with, or it could also be interpreted as the kind of love when one is "in love with oneself".
Put together, these two words do not accurately convey the meaning directly translated from English - "forever love", as Chinese grammar is very much different from that of English. The good news is, they are correctly written.. And although may attract some unwanted attention from Chinese readers for being somewhat "unauthentic", the concept could be made out.
Hope that helps!
Simplified Chinese characters for "Eternity" or "Forever" 永远: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B0%B8%E8%BF%9C
Simplified Chinese character for "Romantic Love" 恋: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%81%8B
