When it comes to readings for your wedding, most people turn to traditional sources. And while there’s nothing wrong with Shakespeare or Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnets From The Portuguese,” there are other poets worth looking into.
Eliza Acton
Victorian Eliza Acton has fallen into obscurity, and not just as a poet: she was once the most famous cookbook writer of her time. A century before Julia Childs went to Paris, Acton was the first to write a cookbook geared for a middle-class housewife. Her single book of poetry includes “I Love Thee.” It’s simple and sentimental, and I particularly like the last two stanzas:
I love thee as I love the swell,
And hush, of some low strain,
Which bringeth, by its gentle spell,
The past to life again.
Such is the feeling which from thee
Nought earthly can allure:
‘Tis ever link’d to all I see
Of gifted–high–and pure!
Sara Teasdale
American poet Sara Teasdale wrote some of the most romantic poetry of her day. “I Would Live in Your Love” and “Joy,” an exuberant expression of new-found love, would both make good readings, as would my favorite of her love poems, “Peace:”
Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs not back like the sea.
I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.
I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies–
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.
Known for his biting wit and delightful plays, Oscar Wilde made us laugh at love – and the lengths to which people will go to secure it. But not everything he wrote was light comedy. His poem, “We Are Made One with What We Touch and See,” speaks to the opening up of our hearts when we fall in love, and how that love connects us to – well, everything. It’s a long poem, and there’s a lot of dense language; to read it in its entirety, click here. I prefer the first and final two stanzas as a wedding reading:
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
And we two lovers shall not sit afar,
Critics of nature, but the joyous sea
Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star
Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be
Part of the mighty universal whole,
And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!
We shall be notes in that great Symphony
Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,
And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall be
One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years
Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,
The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!
Other sources
Other sources often overlooked for wedding readings include the syntax-defying poems of e. e. cummings (especially the joyous “i carry your heart with me”), traditional blessings from other cultures (which can be a nice way to honor your ancestry), and even prose selections from a favorite novel or essay. The most important thing is to find a reading that speaks to you. Because while love may be universal, your wedding day should be as unique and special as your relationship.
Sources:
Eliza Acton, “I love thee,” The Romantic.com
“Eliza Acton Biography,” Wikipedia.org
“Sara Teasdale Biography,” Poets.org
Sara Teasdale, Sara Teasdale’s poetry, Poemhunter.com
Oscar Wilde, “We Are Made One with What We Touch and See,” Blessed With Love
e. e. cummings, “e. e. cummings: Complete Poems, 1904-1962,” Amazon.com
e. e. cummings, “i carry your heart with me,” Famous Poets and Poems.
Reference:
- “Romantic Sonnets for Your Wedding Readings,” Hazel Alleyn, www.associatedcontent.com/article/2214969/romantic_sonnets_for_your_wedding_readings.
- Mrs. Maintenance, “Secular Wedding Alternatives for the Non-Religious,” www.associatedcontent.com/article/431023/secular_wedding_alternatives_for_the.html?ca
- Eliza Acton – full list of her poetry at digital.lib.ucdavis.edu/projects/bwrp/Works/ActoEPoems.htm, UC Davis
