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Bees post your fave love poems and readings of the secular variety!
here is my favorite:
LOVE
by Roy Croft
I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.
I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
This has been posted on here a lot, but I still love it!
The Union by Robert Fulghum
You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making promises and agreements in an informal way. All those conversations that were held riding in a car or over a meal or during long walks - all those sentences that began with “When we’re married” and continued with “I will and you will and we will”- those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe”- and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding. The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “ You know all those things we’ve promised and hoped and dreamed- well, I meant it all, every word.” Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another- acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, and even teacher, for you have learned much from one another in these last few years. Now you shall say a few words that take you across a threshold of life, and things will never quite be the same between you. For after these vows, you shall say to the world, this- is my husband, this- is my wife.
W're using "The Union" at our wedding too - I got teary-eyed reading it just now!
That's why I love the Bee, this is where I first found it!
I hope more people post, I love seeing these.
I'm bumping this up, because I'm hoping more people will post. :)
So, I have two of my three readings settled upon. I am still looking for one about commitment.
For this one, I honestly don't know if I will be able to go through it without bawling. I have my own velveteen rabbit, and the idea of love being the thing that makes you real is near to my heart. Anyways. Here you go:
From "The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
Here is my other settled reading. I think I will have my officiant welcome everyone, then go right into this reading to explain what we are doing there. It is also my little shout out of solidarity for marriage equality. So, I may in the future replace it with the Cal In re Marriages case:
From "Goodridge Vs. Department of Health" by Massachusetts Supreme Court Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall
Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society. For those who choose to marry, and for their children, marriage provides an abundance of legal, financial, and social benefits. In return it imposes weighty legal, financial, and social obligations....Without question, civil marriage enhances the "welfare of the community." It is a "social institution of the highest importance." ... Marriage also bestows enormous private and social advantages on those who choose to marry. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family.... Because it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life's momentous acts of self-definition.
I L-O-V-E the idea of using the "Goodrich vs Department of Health" ruling as a reading.
I have an old copy of the children's book "I Like You" by Sandol Stoddard Warburg. It's essentially a long poem. If we do decide on a reading at our ceremony, I think this will be it.
I like you and I know why.
I like you because you are a good person to like.
I like you because when I tell you something special, you know it’s special
And you remember it a long, long time.
You say, Remember when you told me something special
And both of us remember
When I think something is important
you think it’s important too
We have good ideas
When I say something funny, you laugh
I think I’m funny and you think I’m funny too
Hah-hah!
I like you because you know where I’m ticklish
And you don’t tickle me there except just a little tiny bit sometimes
But if you do, then I know where to tickle you too
You know how to be silly
That’s why I like you
Boy are you ever silly
I never met anybody sillier than me till I met you
I like you because you know when it’s time to stop being silly
Maybe day after tomorrow
Maybe never
Too late, it’s a quarter past silly
Sometimes we don’t say a word
We snurkle under fences
We spy secret places
If I am a goofus on the roofus hollering my head off
You are one too
If I pretend I am drowning, you pretend you are saving me
If I am getting ready to pop a paper bag,
then you are getting ready to jump
HOORAY
That’s because you really like me
You really like me, don’t you
And I really like you back
And you like me back and I like you back
And that’s the way we keep on going every day
If you go away, then I go away too
or if I stay home, you send me a postcard
You don’t just say Well see you around sometime, bye
I like you a lot because of that
If I go away, I send you a postcard too
And I like you because if we go away together
And if we are in Grand Central Station
And if I get lost
Then you are the one that is yelling for me
And I like you because when I am feeling sad
You don’t always cheer me up right away
Sometimes it is better to be sad
You can’t stand the others being so googly and gaggly every single minute
You want to think about things
It takes time
I like you because if I am mad at you
Then you are mad at me too
It’s awful when the other person isn’t
They are so nice and hoo-hoo you could just about punch them in the nose
I like you because if I think I am going to throw up
then you are really sorry
You don’t just pretend you are busy looking at the birdies and all that
You say, maybe it was something you ate
You say, the same thing happened to me one time
And the same thing did
If you find two four-leaf clovers, you give me one
If I find four, I give you two
If we only find three, we keep on looking
Sometimes we have good luck, and sometimes we don’t
If I break my arm, and if you break your arm too
Then it’s fun to have a broken arm
I tell you about mine, you tell me about yours
We are both sorry
We write our names and draw pictures
We show everybody and they wish they had a broken arm too
I like you because I don’t know why but
Everything that happens is nicer with you
I can’t remember when I didn’t like you
It must have been lonesome then
I like you because because because
I forget why I like you but I do
So many reasons
On the Fourth of July I like you because it’s the Fourth of July
On the fifth of July, I like you too
If you and I had some drums and some horns and some horses
If we had some hats and some flags and some fire engines
We could be a HOLIDAY
We could be a CELEBRATION
We could be a WHOLE PARADE
See what I mean?
Even if it was the 999th of July
Even if it was August
Even if it was way down at the bottom of November
Even if it was no place particular in January
I would go on choosing you
And you would go on choosing me
Over and over again
That’s how it would happen every time
I don’t know why
I guess I don’t know why I really like you
Why do I like you
I guess I just like you
I guess I just like you because I like you.
I've adored the book Little Women since I first read it when I was eight. My mother jokes that I really am Amy March in disguise (we have really similar personalities and tendencies). So I picked a reading from Little Women and, just to make it even better, it's from a letter Amy write to her mother about being newly married.
"It is so beautiful to be loved as he loves me. He isn't sentimental, doesn't say much about it, but I see and feel it in all he says and does, and it makes me so happy and so humble that I don't seem to be the same girl I was. I never knew how good and generous and tender he was till now, for he lets me read his heart, and I find it full of noble impulses and hopes and purposes, and am so proud to know it's mine. He says he feels as if he 'could make a prosperous voyage now with me aboard as mate, and lots of love for ballast'. I pray he may, and try to be all he believes me, for I love my gallant captain with all my heart and soul and might, and never will desert him, while God lets us be together. I never knew how much like heaven this world could be, when two people love and live for one another!"
i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
@danadelphia - i love that "i like you" bit - I used it as part of a bridesmaid speech at a reception!
also, and it has been on the bee before, in several bloggers recaps, but we used this reading:
Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog by Taylor Mali
First of all, it’s a big responsibility,
especially in a city like New York.
So think long and hard before deciding on love.
On the other hand, love gives you a sense of security:
when you’re walking down the street late at night
and you have a leash on love
ain’t no one going to mess with you.
Love doesn’t like being left alone for long.
But come home and love is always happy to see you.
It may break a few things accidentally in its passion for life,
but you can never be mad at love for long.
Is love good all the time?
No! No! Love can be bad. Bad, love, bad! Very bad love.
Sometimes love just wants to go for a nice long walk.
It runs you around the block and leaves you panting.
It pulls you in several different directions at once,
or winds around and around you
until you’re all wound up and can’t move.
But love makes you meet people wherever you go.
People who have nothing in common but love
stop and talk to each other on the street.
Throw things away and love will bring them back,
again, and again, and again.
But most of all, love needs love, lots of it.
And in return, love loves you and never stops.
@Krissy - Oh, man, I love that one. Thanks for posting, I've never seen it before.
I absolutely LOVE the last line of this sonnet.
Sonnet 29:
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings
Oh, and by the way- my husband is laughing at me for crying from just reading a little bit of the Velveteen Rabbit.
@lilyfaith - no prob! =)
@danadelphia - glad you enjoyed it! my BM read it during the ceremony and it was so perfect because she's a huge dog lover1 =)
@krissy - Yeah, the boy and I are HUGE dog lovers. I think that would be perfect for our ceremony.
@danadelphia, "I like You" made me laugh and get a bit teary eyed. How perfect! Any reading that includes "HOORAY" is simply brilliant :)
@monitajb - i have always loved the velveteen rabbit, that is a beautiful passage to read at a wedding ... i also cry everytime i read that story, it's so heartbreakingly beautiful.
These are great - please keep them coming! I am planning to spend a lot of time scouring my favorite books this February for quotes to use, but there are some very good ones here. Thanks for sharing!
@WeeBirdy - Awww!! Isn't it so cute?!?
The boy doesn't want to have any readings at our ceremony, but I think I might want one. I'm all for brevity (let's get to the cocktails already!) but some of these are so cute and meaningful.
I may have to strongarm him into this! Haha!
@danadelhia, good luck with the strongarming! When I saw your post I read snippets of it out loud to the FI, and he laughed, so I think that's a good sign. We haven't even discussed readings, but I think if we do one, sweet and funny would be perfect. And I agree, brevity and cocktails are a great combination! :)
Our good friend read this one at our wedding. It is from a Unitarian minister, but in all other respects it is pretty secular.
From A Sermon by Jackie Clement, Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashua, 15 February 2004 -Mature love, the love that grows in a committed relationship, does not come from romantic dinners and champagne. It is forged in fire, through the trials, the boredom, the shared tears and laughter, the decisions and doubts and debts of life together. It takes work and the willingness to extend yourself beyond your own skin, taking into account that you are not one, no matter how romantic that may sound. You are two, with different thoughts and desires, customs, dislikes, and expectations. And if you can still meet each other with all those differences, you will know true love. If, instead of giving yourself up to the other, you extend yourself to meet the other, you will have a basis for life together.
I love Sonnet XVII, by Pablo Neruda:
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Tin Wedding Whistle by Ogden Nash
Though you know it anyhow
Listen to me, darling, now,
Proving what I need not prove
How I know I love you, love.
Near and far, near and far,
I am happy where you are;
Likewise I have never larnt
How to be it where you aren't.
Far and wide, far and wide,
I can walk with you beside;
Furthermore, I tell you what,
I sit and sulk where you are not.
Visitors remark my frown
Where you're upstairs and I am down,
Yes, and I'm afraid I pout
When I'm indoors and you are out;
But how contentedly I view
Any room containing you.
In fact I care not where you be,
Just as long as it's with me.
In all your absences I glimpse
Fire and flood and trolls and imps.
Is your train a minute slothful?
I goad the stationmaster wrothful.
When with friends to bridge you drive
I never know if you're alive,
And when you linger late in shops
I long to telephone the cops.
Yet how worth the waiting for,
To see you coming through the door.
Somehow, I can be complacent
Never but with you adjacent.
Near and far, near and far,
I am happy where you are;
Likewise I have never larnt
How to be it where you aren't.
Then grudge me not my fond endeavor,
To hold you in my sight forever;
Let none, not even you, disparage
Such a valid reason for a marriage.
Ah! I just found this one that I had bookmarked in one of my poetry books and could not for the life of my tracked down - I adore this one, and I adore Walt Whitman in general:
Listen, I will be honest with you ...
I do not offer the old smooth prizes
But offer rough new prizes
These are the days that must happen to you:You shall not heap up what is called riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand
all that you earn or achieve.
However sweet the laid up stores,
However convenient the dwelling,
you shall not remain there.
However sheltered the port,
However calm the waters,
you shall not anchor there.
However welcome the hospitality that welcomes you,
you are permitted to receive it but a little while.
Afoot and lighthearted, take to the open road
Healthy, free, the world before you
The long brown path before you,
Leading wherever you choose.Say only to one another:
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money;
I give you myself before preaching and law:
Will you give me yourself?
Will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
This is just one of my favorite passages in my favorite book of all time, The Little Prince
"...you are nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat…”
~The Little Prince
I love this post! PS @monitajb those are two of my all-time favorite passages!
@Elizabeth--The Little Prince is one of my favorite books too! If I ever get a tattoo, it will be of the fox. :) Great choice for a reading!
An excerpt from "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway
At night, there was the feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a woman wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.
A Love Song By Vernon Scannell
I’ve always been in love with you I swear ‘Impossible,’ they say; yet it is true:I speak with certainty, for I was there.
When I reeled groggy as the punchbowl airWas spiced with melody I longed for you; I’ve always been in love with you I swear.
My infant whispers to the beat-up bear Were meant for you, the tears and kisses too; I speak with certainty, for I was there.
Let experts, calendars and maps declare I’m nuts or have at least one wobbly screw; I’ve always been in love with you I swear.
New kinds of beauty and the wish to share These riches were rehearsals, as I knew; I speak with certainty, for I was there.
These shadow-loves were work-outs to prepare For this, the main event, that they led to; I’ve always been in love with you I swear; I speak with certainty, for I was there.
We had DH's father read this at our wedding. It was beautiful. Maybe a tiny bit non-secular. But I found it pretty even ground for most people.
James Dillet Freeman
Blessing for a Marriage
May your marriage bring you all the exquisite excitements a marriage should bring, and may life grant you also patience, tolerance, and understanding.
May you always need one another - not so much to fill your emptiness as to help you to know your fullness. A mountain needs a valley to be complete; the valley does not make the mountain less, but more; and the valley is more a valley because it has a mountain towering over it. So let it be with you and you.
May you need one another, but not out of weakness. May you want one another, but not out of lack. May you entice one another, but not compel one another. May you embrace one another, but not out encircle one another. May you succeed in all important ways with one another, and not fail in the little graces. May you look for things to praise, often say, "I love you!" and take no notice of small faults.
If you have quarrels that push you apart, may both of you hope to have good sense enough to take the first step back.
May you enter into the mystery which is the awareness of one another's presence - no more physical than spiritual, warm and near when you are side by side, and warm and near when you are in separate rooms or even distant cities. May you have happiness, and may you find it making one another happy. May you have love, and may you find it loving one another.
Ok, this may be kind of silly because it's from an episode of Sex and the City, but I thought it was sweet. Carrie is asked to write a poem and recite it at her friend's wedding (yeah, I wrote it down. I'm a dork, LOL):
His hello was the end of her endings
Her laugh was their first step down the aisle
His hand would be hers to hold forever
His forever was as simple as her smile
He said she was what was missing
She said instantly she knew
She was a question to be answered
And his answer was, “I do.”
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