Centuries of Writing and Rituals on Love and Marriage: Wedding Readings

Wedding ReadingsAcknowledgmentsWendell Berry, from "The Country of Marriage"Anne Morrow Lindbergh, from Bring Me a UnicornFrom "Simple Gifts, " a Shaker hymnIntroductionI. The Time Is ComeAncient Greek dedications to bridesPreambleRevelation 3:8 (New English Bible)Isaiah 61:10-11 (New English Bible)Ecclesiastes 4:7-13 (New English Bible)EuripidesGeorge Herbert, from "Easter"Charles DickensRobert Herrick, "Love Me Little, Love Me Long"Rainer Maria Rilkefrom Letters to a young Poetfrom First PoemsChippewa songRobert Louis Stevenson, from "A Night Among the Pines"James Joyce, poem XIII from Chamber MusicE. M. Forster, from A Room with a ViewJoseph Cambell, from The Hero with a Thousand FacesPaul ValéryAnne Morrow Lindbergh from Bring Me a UnicornRandall Jarrell, from "A Man Meets a Woman in the Street"Gabriela Mistral, God Wills It"Delmore Schwartz, "Will you perhaps consent to be"Alan Dugan, "Love Song: I and Thou"José Garcia Villa, from Have Come, Am HereRobert Creeley, "Kore"Madame LePrince De Beaumont, from Beauty and the Beast"Kenneth Rexroth, from One Hundred Poems from the JapaneseII. In Search of LoveLouise Bogan, from Journey Around My RoomPreamblePlato, from the SymposiumI Corinthians 13 (King James Version)I Corinthians 13:4-8a (New English Bible)Baruch SpinozaEmily Dickinson, from the The Complete Poemsnumber 611number 917number 1155William Shakespeare, SonnetsXVIIIXXXXXXICXVICVIHerbert Spencer, from The Principles of PsychologyBlaise Pascal, from "On the Passion of the Soul"Kenneth Rexroth, from One Hundred Poems from the JapaneseJohn Keats, letters to Fanny BrawneEdward FitzGerald, from The Rubáiyát of Omar KhayyámMatthew Arnold, from "Dover Beach"Ralph Waldo Emersonfrom "Give All to Love"from the essay "Love"Emily Brontë, from Wuthering HeightsEdgar Allan Poe, from "Annabel Lee"Marcel Proust, from The Past RecapturedRainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young PoetEzra Poundfrom The Cantos"??PIA"James BaldwinMichael Ignatieff, from "Lodged in the Heart and Memory"Robert Creeley, "The Language"Wallace Stevens, from "Of Modern Poetry"III. The Processional BeginsFrom a Moravian hymnPreambleRuth 1:16-17 (King James Version)Isaiah 42:16 (New English Bible)Huda Shaarawi, from Harem Years: Memoirs of an Egyptian FeministJohn Donne, from "Epithalamion Made at Lincoln's Inn"Robert Browning, from "Rabbi Ben Ezra"Juan Ramón Jiménez, "Oceans"Saint-Jean Perse, from "Drouth"Walt Whitman"Darest Thou Now O Soul""Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?"from "Song of the Open Road"D. H. Lawrence"Change"Phoenix""Bavarian Gentians"Gerard Manley Hopkins, "At the Wedding March"Anne Morrow Lindbergh, from Gift from the SeaLouise Glück, "Under Taurus"Antonio Machado, from "Rebirth"Peter Matthiessen, from the The Snow LeopardJohn Ashbery, from "The Skaters"Louise Bogan, "Henceforth, from the Mind"Antoine De Saint-Exupéry, from The Little PrinceIV. Eternal Vows in Sacred SpaceJalal Al-Din Rumi, Persion love poemPreambleSir James George Frazer, from The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and ReligionErnest Crawley, from The Mystic Rose: A Study of Primitive Marriage and of Primitive Thought in Its Bearing on MarriageFrom "Terumah," in the ZoharMarge Piercy, "The Chuppah"Hebrew "Seven Blessings"Philip and Hanna Goodman, "The Sabbath as Bride"From "Lekhah Dodi," Hebrew hymn to the Sabbath as a bridePsalms (King James Version)from Psalm 98Psalm 100from Psalm 104Hebrew blessing for Sabbath endJudah Halevi, from a poem to the bridegroomJeremiah 33:10-11 (King James Version)From "The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage," in The Book of Common Prayer (Episcopal)Wedding prayer from the The Book of Common PrayerFrom the apocryphal Acts of ThomasEphesians 4:25-32 (New English Bible)Matthew 19:4-6 (New English Bible)I John 4:7-12 (New English Bible)Colossians 3:12-17 (New English Bible)From the Greek Orthodox marriage serviceFrom the Coptic Orthodox marriage serviceFrom the Hindu marriage ritual of "Seven Steps"Hindu wedding prayerBuddhist marriage homilyJalal al-din Rumi, Persian love poemRobert Herrick, "To Julia"Geoffrey ChaucerEdmund Spenser, from "Epithalamion"Edgar Allen Poe, from "The Bells"Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet XXII from Sonnets from the PortugueseTemple Gairdner, prayer before his marriageA. E. Housman, from "Epithalamium"Iris Murdoch, from The Book and the BrotherhoodWilliam Butler Yeats, from "A Prayer for My Daughter"Gertrude Stein, from "Patriarchal Poetry" V. The Miracle of the BodyDevara Dasimayya, poem to Lord Siva (Ramanatha)PreambleGreek prayer to PriapusSapphoEmily Dickinson, from The Complete Poemsnumber 249Aztec love songThe Song of Solomon (King James Version), set as a playFrom an ancient Sumerian sacred-wedding poemVidyapati, Hindu love poemHindu love poem"On Kissing," from The Kama Sutra of VatsyayanaMichael De Montaigne, from The AutobiographyWilliam Blakefrom The Notebookfrom "Infant Joy"Amy Lowell, "A Decade"H.D., "Evadne"Dylan Thomas, "On the Marriage of a Virgin"E. E. Cummingspoems from "Amores""somewhere i have never travelled"Octavio Paz, from "Sunstone"Denise Levertov"The Ache of Marriage""A Psalm Praising the Hair of Man's Body""Song for a Dark Voice"Halina Po0;swiatowskaKenneth Patchen, "There Is Nothing False in Thee"Anne Sexton, from "Us"Philip Larkin, "Wedding Wind"W. H. Auden, from "Lay Your Sleeping Head"Pablo NerudaSharon Olds, "I Love It When"Wendell Berry, "The Mad Farmer's Love Song"Kenneth Rexroth, "The Old Song and Dance"VI. The Country of MarriageJohn Cheever, from "The Country Husband"PreambleHecaton of RhodesFrom the Wisdom of Ben SiraJalal al-Din Rumi, Persian love poemAnonymousSir Philip Sidney, "My True Love Hath My Heart"Sappho, poemsTurkoman love songAfghan love songLi Tai Po, "Song on the River"Tu Fu, "On the River Tchou"Madame Kuan"Simple Gifts," a Shaker hymn AnonymousAnonymousJohn Donnefrom "The Anniversarie""The Good-Morrow"Christine de Pisan, "In Praise of Marriage"George Herbert, "A Wreath"AnonymousAnonymousAnne Bradstreet, "To my Dear and loving Husband"Christopher Marlowe, "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love"Katherine Philips, from "To My Excellent Lucasia, on Our Friendship"Christina Rossetti, from "Monna Innominata: A Sonnet of Sonnets"Dante Gabriel Rossetti, from "The House of Life"Gustave Flaubert, from Madame BovaryElizabeth Barrett Browning, from Sonnets from the PortugueseSonnet XIVSonnet XLIIIGeorge EliotRobert Louis Stevenson, from Virginibus PuerisqueWilliam Butler Yeats, from "When You Are Old"Denis De Rougemont, from Love in the Western WorldBertrand Russell, from Marriage and MoralsSimone De Beauvoir, from The Second SexMark Van Doren"Marriage""Slowly, Slowly Wisdom Gathers"W. H. AudenBetty Friedan, from The Feminine MystiqueDavid Keller, from "Afternoon, in a Back Yard on Chestnut Street"Graham Greene, from The Heart of the MatterOgden Nash, "Tin Wedding Whistle"John Berryman, from "Canto Amor"Sylvia Ashton-Warner, from MyselfRenée Haenel Levine, letter to her daughterLouise Glück, "The UndertakingTheodore Roethke"I Knew a Woman""Wish for a Young Wife"Louise Bogan"To Be Sung on the Water"from "After the Persian"Marianne Moore, from "Marriage"Archibald MacLeish, "Poem in Prose"Samuel Menashe"Whose Name I Know""Many Named""A-"Maxine Kumin, "Homecoming"Willaim Jay Smith, "Song for a Country Wedding"Phyllis Rose, from Parallel Lives: Five Victorian MarriagesMary Stewart Hammond, "Slow Dancing in the Living Room: Thanksgiving Wendell Berry"Marriage""A Homecoming"from "The Country of Marriage"VII. Morning in Eternal SpaceJames Agee, from Let Us Now Praise Famous menPreamblePercy Bysshe Shelley, "Love's Philosophy"John Keats, from "Endymion"C. Day Lewis, from "Live You by Love"Denise Levertov, "The Depths"Louise Bogan, "Song for the Last Act"Hosea 2:14-15; 18-23 (New English Bible)Greek prayer to the god AyionHymn of the Great Plains Indians to the sunTanganyikan fishermen's prayerAfrican prayer to the new moonChinese prayer of thanksgivingJapanese invocation to the spirits to protect the PalaceThree Turko- Mongolian prayersEskimo love songNavajo hymn to the ThunderbirdBlackfoot prayer to the four directionsChinese prayer to the four directionsChinese blessingsHenry David Thoreaufrom Waldenfrom The JournalCino Da Pistoia, "Sestina of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni"Thomas Hardy, "I Found Her Out There"Vincent Van Gogh, from a letter to his brother, TheoChief Seattle of the Dwamish TribeGrace Schulman, "Blessed Is the Light"Wendell Berry, "A Marriage, an Elegy"Irish blessingStanley Kunitz, "Benediction"Amenophis IV (Ikhnaton), hymn to the sunAnne Dillard, from Holy the FirmAfrican wedding benedictionEdward Lear, from "The Owl and the Pussycat"Wintu tribe, "Dream Song"Suggested Readings for Various Members of the Wedding PartyIndexCredits