Imagine the very first marriage a girl
and boy trembling with some inchoate
need for ceremony a desire for witness:
inventing formality like a wheel or a hoe

In a lost language in a clearing too far from here
a prophet or a prophetess intoned to the lovers
who knelt with their hearts cresting
like the unnamed ocean thinking This is true

Thinking they will never be alone again
planets dip their tracks and fish
desert the sea repeating those magic sounds
meaning I do on this stone below
this tree before these friends yes in body
and word my darkdream my sunsong yes I do I do

Put your hand on my heart, say that you love me as
The woods upon the hill cleave to the hills’ contours.
I will uphold you, trunk and shoot and flowering sheaf,
And I will hold you, roots and fruit and fallen leaf.

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat
They took some honey, and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,

‘O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!

Pussy said to the Owl, ‘You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?’
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-Tree grows,
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood,
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose!
With a ring at the end of his nose.

‘Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?’ Said the Piggy, ‘I will.’
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

This is not Love perhaps ~ Love that lays down
Its life, that many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown -
But something written in lighter ink, said in a lower tone:
Something perhaps especially our own:
A need at times to be together and talk -
And then the finding we can walk
More firmly through dark narrow places
And meet more easily nightmare faces:
A need to reach out sometimes hand to hand -
And then find Earth less like an alien land:
A need for alliance to defeat
The whisperers at the corner of the street
A need for inns on roads, Islands in sets, halts for discoveries to be shared,
Maps checked and notes compared:
A need at times of each for each direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech.

I’ve been reckoning up, in a tumultuous, heartful sort of way, the value of my…wife to me. I can’t state the result - there are no terms of value in which it can be stated - but perhaps I can give you some idea of what its proportions would be if it were stated. She has taken all real pain out of my life: her wonderful loving sympathy exalts even my occasional moods of despondency into a sort or hallowed sadness out of which I come stronger and better. She has given to my ambitions a meaning, an assurance, and a purity which they never had before; with her by my side, ardently devoted to me and to my cause, understanding all my thoughts and all my aims, I feel that I can make the utmost of every power I possess. She has brought into my life the sunshine which was needed to keep it from growing stale and morbid: that has steadily been bringing back into my spirits their old gladness and boyhood, their old delight in play and laughter: - that sweetest sunshine of deep, womanly love, unfailing, gentle patience, even happy spirits and spontaneous mirth, that is purest, swiftest tonic to a spirit prone to fret and apt to flag. She has given me that perfect test of heart and mind of whose existence I had never so much as dreamed before she came to me, which springs out of assured oneness of hope and sympathy - and which, for me, means life and success. Above all she has given me herself to live for! Her arms are able to hold me up against the world: her eyes are able to charm away every care; her words are my solace and inspiration and all because her love is my life.

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all of these
Because ray love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

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 wish I could remember, that first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me,
If bright or dim 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 and 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 and 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!

Love is feeling cold in the back of vans
Love is a fanclub with only two fans
Love is walking holding painstained hands
Love is

Love is fish and chips on winter nights
Love is blankets full of strange delights
Love is when you don’t put out the light
Love is

Love is the presents in Christmas shops
Love is when you’re feeling Top of the Pops
Love is what happens when the music stops
Love is

Love is white panties lying all forlorn
Love is a pink nightdress still slightly warm
Love is when you have to leave at dawn
Love is

Love is you and love is me
Love is a prison and love is free
Love’s what’s there when you’re away from me
Love is…

Tell me where you go
When you look faraway.
I find I am too slow

To catch your mood. I hear
The slow and far-off sea
And waves that beat a shore

That could be trying to
Call us toward our end,
make us hurry through

This little space of dark.
Yet love can stretch it wide.
Each life means so much work

You are my wealth, my pride.
The good side of me, see
That you stay by my side

Two roots of one great tree.