Marriage is a journey filled with laughter, tears, challenges, and victories.
Interest:
Here are 10 heartfelt poems that illuminate the complexities of marriage, celebrating its beauty and authenticity.
Each poem captures a unique facet of love, revealing both the joys and struggles couples face together.
Let’s jump right in!
My favorite poem about marriage
#1 “The Golden Wedding” by David Gray
O love, whose patient pilgrim feet
Life’s longest path have trod,
Whose ministry hath symbolled sweet
The dearer love of God,—
The sacred myrtle wreathes again
Thine altar, as of old;
And what was green with summer then,
Is mellowed, now, to gold.
Not now, as then, the Future’s face
Is flushed with fancy’s light;
But Memory, with a milder grace,
Shall rule the feast to-night.
Blest was the sun of joy that shone,
Nor less the blinding shower—
The bud of fifty years agone
Is Love’s perfected flower.
O Memory, ope thy mystic door!
O dream of youth, return!
And let the lights that gleamed of yore
Beside this altar burn!
The past is plain; ’t was Love designed
E’en Sorrow’s iron chain,
And Mercy’s shining thread has twined
With the dark warp of Pain.
So be it still. O thou who hast
That younger bridal blest,
Till the May-morn of love has passed
To evening’s golden west,
Come to this later Cana, Lord,
And, at thy touch divine,
The water of that earlier board
To-night shall turn to wine.
I chose this poem as my favorite because it beautifully reflects the journey of love through both happy and sad times.
The images of flowers and memories touch deep emotions that anyone married can relate to.
It also perfectly captures the desire for connection and understanding in a marriage while telling us that no marriages are perfect and that good and bad times are all part of the journey.
9 more poems about marriage
#2 “Freedom and Love” by Thomas Campbell
How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at Love’s beginning,
When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there’s no untying!
Yet remember, ‘midst your wooing,
Love has bliss, but Love has ruing;
Other smiles may make you fickle,
Tears for other charms may trickle.
Love he comes, and Love he tarries,
Just as fate or fancy carries;
Longest stays when sorest chidden,
Laughs and flies when press’d and bidden.
Bind the sea to slumber stilly,
Bind its odour to the lily,
Bind the aspen ne’er to quiver,
Then bind Love to last for ever.
Love’s a fire that needs renewal
Of fresh beauty for its fuel;
Love’s wing moults when caged and captured,
Only free he soars enraptured.
Can you keep the bee from ranging,
Or the ringdove’s neck from changing?
No! nor fetter’d Love from dying
In the knot there’s no untying.
#3 “To His Love” by William Shakespeare
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 dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:—
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
#4 “Hail Matrimony, Made of Love!” by William Blake
Hail Matrimony, made of Love!
To thy wide gates how great a drove
On purpose to be yok’d do come;
Widows and Maids and Youths also,
That lightly trip on beauty’s toe,
Or sit on beauty’s bum.
Hail fingerfooted lovely Creatures!
The females of our human natures,
Formèd to suckle all Mankind.
’Tis you that come in time of need,
Without you we should never breed,
Or any comfort find.
For if a Damsel’s blind or lame,
Or Nature’s hand has crook’d her frame,
Or if she’s deaf, or is wall-eyed;
Yet, if her heart is well inclin’d,
Some tender lover she shall find
That panteth for a Bride.
The universal Poultice this,
To cure whatever is amiss
In Damsel or in Widow gay!
It makes them smile, it makes them skip;
Like birds, just curèd of the pip,
They chirp and hop away.
Then come, ye maidens! come, ye swains!
Come and be cur’d of all your pains
In Matrimony’s Golden Cage—
#5 “The Lovers’ Litany” by Rudyard Kipling
Eyes of grey—a sodden quay,
Driving rain and falling tears,
As the steamer puts to sea
In a parting storm of cheers.
Sing, for Faith and Hope are high—
None so true as you and I—
Sing the Lovers’ Litany:—
“Love like ours can never die!”
Eyes of black—a throbbing keel,
Milky foam to left and right;
Whispered converse near the wheel
In the brilliant tropic night.
Cross that rules the Southern Sky!
Stars that sweep, and turn, and fly
Hear the Lovers’ Litany:—
“Love like ours can never die!”
Eyes of brown—a dusty plain
Split and parched with heat of June.
Flying hoof and tightened rein,
Hearts that beat the ancient tune.
Side by side the horses fly,
Frame we now the old reply
Of the Lovers’ Litany:—
“Love like ours can never die!”
Eyes of blue—the Simla Hills
Silvered with the moonlight hoar;
Pleading of the waltz that thrills,
Dies and echoes round Benmore.
“Mabel,” “Officers,” “Good-bye,”
Glamour, wine, and witchery—
On my soul’s sincerity,
“Love like ours can never die!”
Maidens, of your charity,
Pity my most luckless state.
Four times Cupid’s debtor I—
Bankrupt in quadruplicate.
Yet, despite my evil case,
An a maiden showed me grace,
Four-and-forty times would I
Sing the Lovers’ Litany:—
“Love like ours can never die!”
#6 “Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one another’s being mingle—
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdain’d its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea—
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?
#7 “Love’s Omnipresence” by Joshua Sylvester
Were I as base as is the lowly plain,
And you, my Love, as high as heaven above,
Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain
Ascend to heaven, in honour of my Love.
Were I as high as heaven above the plain,
And you, my Love, as humble and as low
As are the deepest bottoms of the main,
Whereso’er you were, with you my love should go.
Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies,
My love should shine on you like to the sun,
And look upon you with ten thousand eyes
Till heaven wax’d blind, and till the world were done.
Whereso’er I am, below, or else above you,
Whereso’er you are, my heart shall truly love you.
#8 “Love and Harmony Combine” by William Blake
Love and harmony combine,
And around our souls entwine
While thy branches mix with mine,
And our roots together join.
Joys upon our branches sit,
Chirping loud and singing sweet;
Like gentle streams beneath our feet
Innocence and virtue meet.
Thou the golden fruit dost bear,
I am clad in flowers fair;
Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,
And the turtle buildeth there.
There she sits and feeds her young’
Sweet I hear her mournful song;
And thy lovely leaves among,
There is love, I hear his tongue.
There his charming nest doth lay,
There he sleeps the night away;
There he sports along the day,
And doth among our branches play.
#9 “The Silence of Love” by George William (“A. E.”) Russell
I could praise you once with beautiful words ere you came
And entered my life with love in a wind of flame.
I could lure with a song from afar my bird to its nest,
But with pinions drooping together silence is best.
In the land of beautiful silence the winds are laid,
And life grows quietly one in the cloudy shade.
I will not waken the passion that sleeps in the heart,
For the winds that blew us together may blow us apart.
Fear not the stillness; for doubt and despair shall cease
With the gentle voices guiding us into peace.
Our dreams will change as they pass through the gates of gold,
And Quiet, the tender shepherd, shall keep the fold.
#10 “My Love in Her Attire Doth Show Her Wit” by Anonymous
My Love in her attire doth show her wit,
It doth so well become her:
For every season she hath dressings fit,
For Winter, Spring, and Summer.
No beauty she doth miss
When all her robes are on;
But Beauty’s self she is
When all her robes are gone.