Help me Flist - you're my only hope

[kellifer]

So my best friend/flatmate is getting married and she wants me to read something, like a poem or something like that about love and stuff. The celebrant provided a reading but it's kinda lame and impersonal - does anyone have any ideas? Another friend had a reading from The Skin Horse and it was very cute but done so I can't do that.

I'm relying on the fact that you all are creative and far more well read than me (considering my book shelves are full of Stephen King, Clive Barker etc and that might not be appropriate) and can make some suggestions??

Help!

ETA: Thank you so much!

In other news, I am writing at the moment. I know it doesn't really seem like it but I truly am. I even have a couple of stories ready to go - just need some clean up. Plus, my entry for kamikazeremix should be posted v. soon, I've signed up for the SPN Xmas exchange (one of my prompts was pretty much the same as a prompt of mine and I'm writing that... heh!) and I maaaay have signed up for Inception Big Bang... eep!

Comments

[nicky69.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that the Shakespeare sonnet is a personal favourite, but I also love the following.

Mutual vows

Sweetheart, I beg you to renew and seal
With a not supererogatory kiss
Our contract of 'For Ever.'
Learned judges
Deplore the household sense 'interminable':
True love, they rule, never acknowledges
Future or past, only a perfect now...
But let it read 'For Ever', anyhow!

Robert Graves "For Ever"

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'My True Love Hath My Heart'

My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one for another given.
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss:
There never was a better bargain driven.
My true love hath my heart and I have his.

His heart in me, keeps him and me in one,
My heart in him, his thoughts and senses guides:
He loves my heart, for once it was his own:
I cherish his, because in me it bides.
My true love hath my heart and I have his.

sir Philip Sidney (just change the he to she where appropriate)

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'Psalm to My Beloved'
Lo, I have opened unto you the wide gates of my being,
And like a tide you have flowed into me.
The innermost recesses of my spirit are full of you,
and all the channels of my soul are grown sweet with
your presence.
For you have brought me peace;
The peace of great tranquil waters, and the quiet of
the summer sea.
Your hands are filled with peace as the noon-tide is
filled with light; about your head is bound the eternal
quiet of the stars, and in your heart dwells the calm
miracle of twilight.
I am utterly content.
In all my spirit is no ripple of unrest,
For I have opened unto you the wide gates of my being
And like a tide you have flowed into me.

Eunice Tietjens (xx 1884-1944) [Cole]


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Amid the gloom and travail of existence suddenly to behold a beautiful being, and as instantaneously to feel an overwhelming conviction that with that fair form for ever our destiny must be entwined; that there is no more joy but in her joy, no sorrow but when she grieves; that in her sigh of love, in her smile of fondness, hereafter all is bliss; to feel our flaunty ambition fade away like a shrivelled gourd before her vision; to feel fame a juggle and posterity a lie; and to be prepared at once, for this great object, to forfeit and fling away all former hopes, ties, schemes, views; to violate in her favour every duty of society; this is a lover, and this is love!

from "Henrietta Temple" by Behjamin Disraeli

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The need to surrender is one of the great paradoxes of love. Surrender may seem like giving up. Or giving in. But in reality we are strengthened when we actively choose to make ourselves vulnerable. We are empowered by sharing our deepest self with another person, offering him or her our heart, our soul, our life. Surrender is an act of free will. A sacred trust.

by Ellen Sue Stern