Poem for very sad wedding

[mumblechum1]

My nephew is getting married on Friday. He and his fiancee had planned to get married next year but last month he was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour and is not likely to last beyond Christmas.

I'd like to quote a poem and put it in the card (getting an appropriate card was in itself a challenge!), but don't know where to start.

Something as up beat as possible, but not "may you live many years and live old together" because that clearly isn't going to happen

There's Gather Ye Rosebuds, by Robert Herrick, which seems to fit the situation exactly, but may be too much so, iyswim. It's the first one I think of, but I'm not sure I'd use it because it might be too bittersweet. What about one of the joyful live-in-the-moment John Donnes, such as The Good Morrow or The Sunne Rising?

Not sure exactly what type of poem you seek but these two are old favourites.

?To Be One With Each Other? by George Eliot

What greater thing is there for two human souls
than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen
each other in all labor, to minister to each other in all sorrow,
to share with each other in all gladness,
to be one with each other in the
silent unspoken memories?

"Touched by an Angel" by Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Just thought about this one which might be suitable for the day. Its not a wedding poem as such but I thought it might fit the bill.

Salutation of the Dawn
LISTEN to the exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day! For it is Life, The very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the Varieties And Realities of your Existence;
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And To-morrow is only a Vision;
But To-day well lived
Makes every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every To-morrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn.

I am so sorry to hear your sad news, that is heartbreaking for you all. I hope though you will be able to have a day which is a celebration of their love
I have read 2 of these poems at the wedding of a person with a terminal illness and the first I gave to a relative in a card with two tiny glass hearts for the bride and groom to tuck into their hands. Even if they don't seem right for you and your nephew, I hope they help you feel that there will be someone along soon with other suggestions and that it will be possible to find something. all the very best
xx

THE SECRET OF LOVE

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 in 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)

(ee cummings)

OR

EPITHALAMIUM

this is your new garden, a whole wide
world of it, so green and songbird fresh,
all yours to map and fill with luminous
constellations of fruit and berry blossoms

this is your new garden, tend it as if
all the young shoots that promise
a succulent harvest of root and ear
will be young and tender for all time

this is your garden, there will always be
much hoeing and raking, the clearing
of weeds and sowing of seeds will ask
patience, attention, forgiving laughter

this is the garden you want to live in, it?s not
all sunshine ? there?s moonshine too, all earth
needs storms, but when dark clouds peel back,
see your garden bloom into a universe of stars

(Aonghas MacNeacail)

OR

Do I love you
To the moon and back?
No I love you
More than that

I love you to the desert sands
The mountains, stars
The planets and

I love you to the deepest sea
And deeper still
Through history

Before beyond I love you then
I love you now
I?ll love you when

The sun?s gone out
The moon?s gone home
And all the stars are fully grown

When I no longer say these words
I?ll give them to the winds, the birds
So that they will still be heard

I love you

(James Carter)

That last one is lovely and apt.

Sorry, my comment was about Salutation of the Dawn, although the James Carter one is striking too, depends on the characters of the couple too, I would think.

Love is Enough
William Morris

Love is enough: though the world be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the skies be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter:
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

I agree the last one is beautiful. . Hope they have a lovely day

I meant the James Carter ..

Oh god I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face.

I'll come back and read all these when I'm feeling a bit more together.

Thank you all so much - I wasn't expecting much in reply, but you've all been so lovely to take the time.

The James Carter one is fabulous.

Maybe have a look at the poetry of CS Lewis who got married in similar circumstances.

my mum read a poem for dh and I that we chose and I think turned out to be rather prophetic as dh was diagnosed with cancer 3 months after we married and died a year later. I took one verse and had it inscribed on his grave stone. I will look for it and post later. Sorry for you and your family and his poor fiance

my mum read a poem for dh and I that we chose and I think turned out to be rather prophetic as dh was diagnosed with cancer 3 months after we married and died a year later. I took one verse and had it inscribed on his grave stone. I will look for it and post later. Sorry for you and your family and his poor fiance

May the sun bring you new energy by day,
May the moon softly restore you by night,
May the rain wash away your worries
And the breeze blow new strength into your being,
And all the days of your life may you walk
Gently through the world and know its beauty.

I thought it was longer but perhaps not and I just typed it for mum all fancy

The James Carter one is beautiful, so sorry to hear about your nephew.

If you or youe nephew have any Scottish roots then this is lovely:

A Red, Red Rose
by Robert Burns

My love is like a red, red rose
That?s newly sprung in June :
My love is like the melody
That?s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I :
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a? the seas gang dry.

Till a? the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi? the sun :
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o? life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only love,
And fare thee weel a while !
And I will come again, my love,
Thou? it were ten thousand mile.

I think the ee cummings one is quoted in the film 'Truly, Madly, Deeply' , which is very apt as it is about a woman living through her first months as a widow.

Bike maybe you are thinking of an extract from The Dead Woman by Pablo Neruda?

If you are not living,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you
have died,
all the leaves will fall on my breast,
it will rain upon my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with cold and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to march toward where you sleep,
but
I shall go on living.

Neruda is great for bereavement poems...

But I also like this one of his:

Sonnet XVII

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.

Oh how sad. I think the William Morris is wonderful. Am crying!

Keep thinking of the last lines of To His Coy Mistress

'Thus, though we cannot make our Sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.'

I hope they make him run.

I've always loved this one by Edwin Muir.

The Confirmation

Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face.
I in my mind had waited for this long,
Seeing the false and searching for the true,
Then found you as a traveller finds a place
Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong
Valleys and rocks and twisting roads. But you,
What shall I call you? A fountain in a waste,
A well of water in a country dry,
Or anything that's honest and good, an eye
That makes the whole world seem bright. Your open heart,
Simple with giving, gives the primal deed,
The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed,
The heath, the steadfast land, the wandering sea.
Not beautiful or rare in every part.
But like yourself, as they were meant to be.

This is an absolutely amazing thread. I defy anyone reading this to remain unmoved. Best wishes to the couple - I hope they have a wonderful day.

You probably won't want this for the wedding, but might like to store it up in case you have need of it later. It's a war time code poem, issued to SOE agent Violette Szabo who did not return.

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

Leo Marks

Edwin Muir's poem is wonderful..

Anyone manage to get to this point and not be in tears?
I don't have any ideas but just wanted to say I'm sorry about your nephew.

Personally I would find the ones being very blatant about death a bit too much on a wedding day but some like the carter one that just allude slightly to the future work better. They are all very sad and beautiful though

Not a poem by a poet, but by an artist, Rob Ryan:

"I can't forget, and I never will.
You smiled at me, and from nothing something came.
Now the world is new to me again;
I will remember still -
You smiled at me
And now I dream a dream of good."

My sympathies to your family, what an impossible situation to be in.