Section 5 ~ Romantic

73. A Marriage By Michael Blumenthal


You are holding up a ceiling
with both arms. It is very heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and, as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.
But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:
Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.
So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner's arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.
And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.

74. A Marriage is a Promise

A marriage is a promise
that two hearts gladly make.
A promise to be tender,
to help, to give and take.

A marriage is a promise
to be kind and understanding
To be thoughtful and considerate,
fair and undemanding.

A marriage is a promise
to share one life together….
A love-filled promise meant to be
kept lovingly for ever.



75. All I have to give by Cara G. Stanfield

You're the first thing I think of
Each morning when I rise.
You're the last thing I think of
Each night when I close my eyes.
You're in each thought I have
And every breath I take.
My feelings are growing stronger
With every move I make.
I want to prove I love you
But that's the hardest part.
So, I'm giving all I have to give
To you... I give my heart.

76. Always

This isn’t sometime
This is always
This isn’t maybe
This is always
The real beginning of forever
This isn’t just midsummer madness
A passing glow, a moment’s gladness
This is love.
I knew it on the night we met
You tied a string around my heart
So how could I forget you?
With every kiss I know that this
Is Always


77. Babylon 5 speech

The Universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice.
The language is not Narn or Human or Centauri or Gaim or Minbari.

It speaks in the language of hope. It speaks in the language of trust.
It speaks in the language of strength, and the language of compassion.
It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul.
But always it is the same voice.

It is the voice of our ancestors speaking through us.
And the voice of our inheritors waiting to be born.
It is the small, still voice that says we are One.

No matter the blood, no matter the skin,
No matter the world, no matter the star,
We are One.
No matter the pain, no matter the darkness,
No matter the loss, no matter the fear.
We are One.

Here, gathered together in common cause
We agree to recognize this singular truth and this singular rule:
That we must be kind to one another.

Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us,
And each voice lost diminishes us.
We are the voice of the universe, the soul of creation,
The fire that will light the way to a better future.

We are One.


78. Brown Eyes (Lyrics from Destiny’s Child song)

Remember the first day when I saw your face
Remember the first day when you smiled at me
You stepped to me and then you said to me
I was the woman you dreamed about
Remember the first day when you called my house
Remember the first day when you took me out
we had butterflies although we tried to hide
and we both had a beautiful night

The way we held each others hand,
the way we talked, the way we laughed
it felt so good to find true love
I knew right then and there you were the one.


79. Come with me, Go with me

Come with me, go with me
Burn with me, glow with me
Write me a sonnet or two
Sleep with me, wake with me
Give with me, take with me
Love me the way I love you.
Let me get high with you
Laugh with you, cry with you
Be without you when I am blue
Rest with you, fight with you
Day with you, night with you
Love me whatever I do.
Work with me, play with me
Run with me, stay with me
Make me your partner in crime
Handle me, Grow with me
Cradle me tenderly
Say I’m your reason and rhyme.
Pray with me, sin with me
Love with me, win with me
Love me with all of my scars.
Rise with me, fall with me
Hide from it all with me
Nothing is mine now – its ours.

80. Dance Me to the End of Love Leonard Cohen

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the wedding now dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We’re both of us beneath our love we’re both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love


81. For You Both

Scattered from hands of love like bread for wild birds
Flung like rainbows of confetti from hands of joy
Released like drops of warm and living rain
We shower you with blessings
May companionship sustain you
Love be your walking guide
Joy the bricks that build your house
Laughter the cement that makes you strong
Compassion the roof that shelters you
In its strong and caring arms
May the path you walk together be the quiet path of harmony
Respecting each other’s differences
May friends and children gather at your table
May life be long and, at its human end
May the gaze that falls each upon the other
Be still alive with love
And twinkle yet with laughter
Health, gladness and love always
Dear……. and Dear………
With hearts filled with joy we celebrate
Your wedding day

82. Marriage Poem

You have become mine forever.
Yes, we have become partners.
I have become yours.
Hereafter, I cannot live without you.
Do not live without me.
Let us share the joys.
We are word and meaning, unite.
You are thought and I am sound.

May the nights be honey-sweet for us.
May the mornings be honey-sweet for us.
May the plants be honey-sweet for us.
May the earth be honey-sweet for us.



83. How Do I Love Thee? ~ By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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 candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a 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 Providence choose,
I shall but love thee better after death

84. I belong in your arms

Finally
I have found a place
into which I fit perfectly,
Safely and securely
with no doubts, no fears,
no sadness, no tears.

This place is filled
with happiness and laughter,
Yet it is spacious enough
to allow me
The freedom to move around,
To live my life and to be myself.

This wonderful place
which I never believed really existed
I have found
Finally
Inside your arms,
Inside your heart,
Inside your love.

85. I Ching

When two people are at one
in their inmost hearts,
they shatter even the strength of iron or bronze.
And when two people understand each other
in their inmost hearts,
their words are sweet and strong,
like the fragrance of orchids.


86. If I can make you cry

If I can fill your eyes with pleasure
just by holding you
In the early hours of the morning
when the day that lies ahead’s
not quite begun

If I can make you smile
If I can move you close
to laughter with a word or two
when your day’s been filled with strangers
and the castles that you build
all tumble down
Oh well, that’s enough for me
that’s all the hero I need to be
I smile to think of you and me
You and I
and how our pleasures make you cry.

87. If Thou Must Love Me ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
'I love her for her smile - her look - her way
Of speaking gently,- for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day' -
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee - and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.


88. If you have found a smile

If you have found a smile
That is the sweetest one you’ve ever known
If you have heard, within a voice
The echoes of your own,
If you have ever felt a touch
That stirs the longings of your heart
And still can feel that closeness
In the moments you’re apart
If you are filled with wonder
At the way two lives can blend
To weave a perfect pattern
That is seamless, end to end
If you believe some things in life
Are simply meant to be
Then you have found your soulmate
Your heart’s own destiny

89. Looking For Your Face ~ by Rumi

From the beginning of my life I have been looking for your face, but today I have seen it. Today I have seen the charm, the beauty, the unfathomable grace of the face that I was looking for. Today I have found you, and those who laughed and scorned me yesterday are sorry that they were not looking as I did. I am bewildered by the magnificence of your beauty, and wish to see you with a hundred eyes. My heart has burned with passion and has searched forever for this wondrous beauty that I now behold. I am ashamed to call this love human, and afraid to call it divine. Your fragrant breath, like the morning breeze, has come to the stillness of the garden. You have breathed new life into me. I have become your sunshine, and also your shadow. My soul is screaming in ecstasy. Every fiber of my being is in love with you. Your burning light has lit a fire in my heart, and you have made radiant for me the earth and sky. My arrow of love has arrived at the target. I am in the house of mercy, and my heart is a place of prayer.


90. 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.

91. Love is

Love is more than passing pleasures
Love is happiness
Found in home and homely treasures
That the years will bless
Love is caring – Love is bearing one
Another’s crosses
Love is sharing everything,
The profits and the Losses

Love is more than bells and laughter on a
Wedding day
Love is facing what comes after
Sunny skies or grey
Love is giving
Love is living just for one another
Working out the daily problems of your lives…Together

92. Marriage ~ By Mary Weston Fordham

The die is cast, come weal, come woe,
Two lives are joined together,
For better or for worse, the link
Which naught but death can sever.
The die is cast, come grief, come joy
Come richer, or come poorer,
If love but binds the mystic tie,
Blest is the bridal hour.

93. My Love ~ by Linda Lee Elrod

When I met you, I had no idea
how much my life
was about to be changed...
but then, how could I have known?

A love like ours happens
once in a lifetime.
You were a miracle to me,
the one who was everything
I had ever dreamed of,
the one I thought existed
only in my imagination.

And when you came into my life,
I realized that what I
had always thought
was happiness
couldn't compare to the joy
loving you brought me.

You are a part of everything
I think and do and feel,
and with you by my side,
I believe that anything is possible.
(this day) gives me a chance
to thank you for the miracle of you...
you are, and always will be,
the love of my life.


94. My Luve’s Like a Red, Red Rose - Robert Burns

My luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
O, my Luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve 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 luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!


95. Partners by Patience Strong

The first dance of all when they danced heart to heart
They knew, they both knew, it was only the start
Of something more wonderful than a mere dance
More than a thrill of a passing romance.

They knew without saying that love, the real thing,
Had touched them that night with its shimmering wing.
No word had been spoken and yet they both knew
That suddenly all sorts of dreams had come true.

It’s many a year since the night that they met
But that first dance they will never forget
Then a boy and a girl and now husband and wife
Still happy, still dancing and partners for life.

96. Somewhere ~ by Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904)

Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours
for one lone soul, another lonely soul -
Each chasing each through all the weary hours,
And meeting strangely at one sudden goal;
Then blend they - like green leaves with golden flowers,
Into one beautiful and perfect whole -
And life's long night is ended, and the way
Lies open onward to eternal day.



97. Sonnet 116 - by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever fixèd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come,
Love alters not within his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

98. The Beauty of Love

The question is asked: “Is there anything more beautiful in
life than a young couple clasping hands and pure hearts in
the path of marriage? Can there be anything more beautiful
than young love?” And the answer is given: “Yes, there is a
more beautiful thing. It is the spectacle of an old man and
an old woman finishing their journey together on that path.
Their hands are gnarled but still clasped; their faces are
seamed but still radiant; their hearts are physically bowed
and tired but still strong with love and devotion. Yes, there
is a more beautiful thing than young love. Old love.”


99. The Book of Love (lyrics by Peter Gabriel)

The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It's full of charts and facts and figures and instructions for dancing
But I,
I love it when you read to me
And you.
You can read me anything
The book of love has music in it
In fact that's where music comes from
Some of it is just transcendental
Some of it is just really dumb
But I
I love it when you sing to me
And you
You can sing me anything
The book of love is long and boring
And written very long ago
It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes
And things we're all too young to know
But I
I love it when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings

100. The Colour of My Love by David Foster, Arthur Janov

I'll paint a sun to warm your heart
Knowing that we'll never part.
I'll draw the years all passing by
So much to learn, so much to try.
I'll paint my mood in a shadow blue,
Paint my soul to be with you.
I'll sketch your lips in shaded tones,
Draw your mouth to my own.
I'll trace a hand to wipe your tears
And trace a look to calm your fears.
A silhouette of dark and light
To hold each other oh so tight.
I'll paint the stars in the evening sky,
Draw the light into your eyes,
A touch of love, a touch of grace,
To softly fall on your moonlit face.
And with this ring our lives will start,
Let nothing keep our love apart.
I'll take your hand to hold in mine,
And be together through all time.


101. The First Day ~ by Christina Rossetti

I wish I could remember the first day, first hour,
first moment of your meeting me;
If dim or bright the season,
It might be Summer or Winter for aught I can say.

So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see & to foresee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom yet for many a May

If only I could recollect it!
Such a day of days!
I let it come & go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow.

It seemed to mean so little, meant so much!
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand!
Did one but know!

102. The Magic of Love Helen Steiner Rice

Love is like magic, and it always will be, For love still remains life's sweet mystery. Love works in ways that are wondrous and strange, And there's nothing in life that love cannot change! Love can transform the most commonplace Into beauty and splendor and sweetness and grace. Love is unselfish, understanding and kind, For it sees with its heart, and not with its mind. Love is the answer that everyone seeks; Love is the language that every heart speaks. Love can't be bought, it is priceless and free. Love, like pure magic, is life's sweet mystery!!

103. 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.


104. True Love by Sir Philip Sydney

My true love hath my heart & 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 & I have his.

His heart in me keeps him & me in one,
My heart in him his thoughts & 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 & I have his.

105. Two Doves

Two doves meeting in the sky
Two loves hand in hand eye to eye
Two parts of a loving whole
Two hearts and a single soul

Two stars shining big and bright
Two fires bringing warmth and light
Two songs played in perfect tune
Two flowers growing into bloom

Two Doves gliding in the air
Two loves free without a care
Two parts of a loving whole
Two hearts and a single soul

106. Vows

Today begins my walk with you
Where you go, I go
Where you stay, I stay
When you sleep, I will sleep
When you rise, I will rise
I will pass my days
Within the sound of your voice,
And my nights
Within the reach of your hand,
And none shall come between us.
This I vow.