Poetic Expression of Love in Matrimony

Edgar Allan Poe stated in The Heresy of the Didactic that “poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words. ” Yes, you can communicate the more “cut and dry” aspects of your affection through the vehicle of prose, but what about the passion and emotion which makes your blood rush and your heart pump faster? Passion and beauty call for nothing less than poetry.

A wedding is a testament in front of various witnesses to your mutual love & affection, and therefore it is important to choose a poem that will not only aptly communicate your affection for your beloved, but also one that will assure them of your loyalty in sickness and in health,for richer and for poorer.

It is vital that your poetry selection is personal and appropriate, and since I do not know you personally I cannot necessarily give you the “perfect poem,” but here are a few beautiful expressions to begin with…

Give All to Love by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Give all to love; Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good fame,
Plans, credit, and the muse; Nothing refuse.
‘Tis a brave master, Let it have scope, Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope; High and more high,
It dives into noon, With wing unspent,
Untold intent; But ’tis a god,
Knows its own path, And the outlets of the sky.
‘Tis not for the mean, It requireth courage stout,
Souls above doubt, Valor unbending;
Such ’twill reward, They shall return More than they were,
And ever ascending. Leave all for love;
– Yet, hear me, yet, One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor, Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, for ever, Free as an Arab Of thy beloved.
Cling with life to the maid; But when the surprise,
Vague shadow of surmise, Flits across her bosom young
Of a joy apart from thee, Free be she, fancy-free,
Do not thou detain a hem, Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem. Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay, Tho’ her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive, Heartily know,
When half-gods go, The gods arrive.”

To My Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet
“If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more then whole Mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.”

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare
“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.”

Song of Solomon 8:6
“Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm:
for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave:
the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.”

Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments, Translated out of the Original Tongues and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised : King James Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1988. Print.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2007. Print.
Shakespeare, William, G. Blakemore Evans, and J. J. M. Tobin. The Riverside Shakespeare: the Complete Works. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. Print.
Baym, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. Print
Williams, Oscar. The New Pocket Anthology of American Verse: from Colonial Days to the Present. Cleveland: World Pub., 1955. Print.