Wedding Blessings Prayers and Poems Celebrating Love, Marriage, and Anniversaries

What Greater Thing What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life-- to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories . . . -George Eliot (1819-1880) You Were Born Together (from The Prophet) You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each of you be alone, Even as the strings of the lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hands of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow. -Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) When Two People Are at One When two people are at one in their inmost hearts They shatter even the strength of iron or of bronze And when two people understand each other in their inmost hearts Their words are sweet and strong like the fragrance of orchids. I Ching Married Love You and I Have so much love That it Burns like a fire, In which we bake a lump of clay Molded into a figure of you And a figure of me. Then we take both of them, And break them into pieces, And mix the pieces with water, And mold again a figure of you, And a figure of me. I am in your clay. You are in my clay. In life we share a single quilt. In death we will share one bed. -Kuan Tao-Sheng (1262-1319) Translated from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung To Love Another For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation . . . Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person--it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen . . . to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. -Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) Translated by Stephen Mitchell The Passionate Shepherd to His Love Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the rocks Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers and a kirtle Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle. A gown made of the finest wool, Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold. A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love. [read more]