Verses and Readings

Finding the perfect words about love for your vow renewal can be challenging. Sometimes, it’s helpful to look at the works of renowned authors such as Robert Browning and those of more contemporary writers when seeking verses, prayers, and content for toasts. Here are some of our favorites to inspire you.

Love

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
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.

Roy Croft (1907-1973)

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Love Is Patient

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast,
it is not proud. It is not rude,
it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily agered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. . . .

And now these three remain:
faith, hope and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

I Corinthians 13:4-8, 13 (NIV)

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What Greater Thing

What greater thing is there for two human souls,
than to feel that they are joined for life-
to strengthen each other in all labor,
to rest on each other in all sorrow,
to minister to each other in all pain,
to be one with each other
in silent unspeakable memories …

George Eliot (1819-1880)

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Married Love

You and I
Have so much love
That it
Burns like a fire,
In which we bake a lump of clay
Molded into a figure of you
And a figure of me.
Then we take both of them,
And break them into pieces,
And mix the pieces with water,
And mold again a figure of you,
And a figure of me.
I am in your clay.
You are in my clay.
In life we share a single quilt.
In death we will share one bed.

Kuan Tao-Sheng (1262-1319)
Translated from the original Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung

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When Two People Are at One

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

I Ching

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In One Another’s Souls

The moment I heard my first love story I began seeking you,
not realizing the search was useless.
Lovers don’t meet somewhere along the way.
They’re in one another’s souls from the beginning.

Rumi (1207-1273)
Adapted by Eleanor Munro from the translation by A. J. Arberry

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My Bounty (from Romeo and Juliet)

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

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I Shall Love You

Sensual pleasure passes and vanishes in the twinkling of an eye, but the friendship between us, the mutual confidence, the delights of the heart, the enchantment of the soul, these things do not perish and can never be destroyed. I shall love you until I die.

Voltaire (1694-1778)