11 romantic poems to read on your wedding day

To mark World Poetry Day, March 21, we've found 11 romantic poems to read out on your wedding day

After a trying and turbulent year of weddings, couples can finally begin re-planning their dream wedding, and what better way to express your love than planning a Shakespearean sonnet or passionate poem into your order of wedding service. 

Whether you wear your heart on your sleeve or just want a few meaningful words to read out to your loved one during the ceremony or recption, here are 11 romantic poems to inspire your speech: 

I loved you first: but afterwards your love

By Chrisina Rossetti

I loved you first: but afterwards your love

Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song

As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.

Which owes the other most? my love was long,

And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;

I loved and guessed at you, you construed me

And loved me for what might or might not be –

Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.

For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’

With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,

For one is both and both are one in love:

Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’

Both have the strength and both the length thereof,

Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

 

Lines Depicting Simple Happiness

by Peter Gizzi 

It feels right to be up this close in tight wind

It feels right to notice all the shiny things about you

About you there is nothing I wouldn’t want to know

With you nothing is simple yet nothing is simpler.

 

For Keeps

By Joy Harjo

Sun makes the day new.

Tiny green plants emerge from earth.

Birds are singing the sky into place.

There is nowhere else I want to be but here.

I lean into the rhythm of your heart to see where it will take us.

We gallop into a warm, southern wind.

I link my legs to yours and we ride together,

Toward the ancient encampment of our relatives.

Where have you been? they ask.

And what has taken you so long?

That night after eating, singing, and dancing

We lay together under the stars.

We know ourselves to be part of mystery.

It is unspeakable.

It is everlasting.

It is for keeps.

 

She Walks in Beauty

By Lord Byron (George Gordon)

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

 

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

 

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

 

Love is more thicker than forget 

By E. E. Cummings

love is more thicker than forget

more thinner than recall

more seldom than a wave is wet

more frequent than to fail

 

it is most mad and moonly

and less it shall unbe

than all the sea which only

is deeper than the sea

 

love is less always than to win

less never than alive

less bigger than the least begin

less littler than forgive

 

it is most sane and sunly

and more it cannot die

than all the sky which only

is higher than the sky

 

 

 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)

By William Shakespeare - 1564-1616

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.

    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

 

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning - 1806-1861

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

 

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in)

By E. E. Cummings

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 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)

 

Yours

By Daniel Hoffman - 1923-2013

I am yours as the summer air at evening is

Possessed by the scent of linden blossoms,

 

As the snowcap gleams with light

Lent it by the brimming moon.

 

Without you I'd be an unleafed tree

Blasted in a bleakness with no Spring.

 

Your love is the weather of my being.

What is an island without the sea?

 

Luvze Poems 

By Anon

My angel, my life, my entire world,

please be with me always, my one and only girl

I love you so deeply, that I know is so true,

for there is no one else, my heart beats just for you

No matter what happens, you’re always the one, that I want to come home to,

I’m the Earth to your sun.

(Source: Luvze.com)

 

Luvze Poems 

By Anon

I dream of a woman clothed in white.

She wears wings that shine with golden light.

Her hair is fine like that of an olden wife.

Her eyes hold a vision of the road of life.

She whispers love through the winds.

Then rivers of love flow to my heart and my spirit ascends.

I grow embraced by heavenly heights.

Then glow rays of warmth and light.

I wait only for her touch of the purest.

I fall to her holding of love, of spirit!

We become one in loving presence together.

In love, we come to heaven forever.

Like two doves we sing and dance.

Love of a queen and king.

Love will forever last.

(Source: Luvze.com)

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