Table of Contents
Introduction xiii
Bible Readings
Genesis 1.26-28, 31 3
Genesis 2.18-24 4
Genesis 24.48-51, 58-67 5
Ruth 1.16-18 7
Psalm 67 8
Psalm 121 9
Psalm 128 10
Psalm 150 11
Song of Solomon 2.8-12; 8.6-7 12
Jeremiah 31.31-34 14
Tobit 7.9-10, 11-14 15
Tobit 8.5-7 16
Matthew 5.1-12 17
Matthew 5.13-16 18
Matthew 19.3-6 19
Romans 8.35, 37-39 20
Romans 12.1-2, 9-18 21
1Corinthians 13.1-13 22
Philippians 4.4-9 23
Colossians 3.12-15 24
1John 3.18-24 25
1John 4.7-12 26
Poems and Reflections
Now You Will Feel No Rain
Apache song
Carry Her Over the Water
W. H. Auden
• Tell Me the Truth About Love
W. H. Auden
From Poetry and Marriage
Wendell Berry
To My Dear and Loving Husband
Ann Bradstreet
Sonnet No. 19
Bertolt Brecht
How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Late Fragment
Raymond Carver
Che Fece... Il Gran Rifiuto
C. P. Cavafy
Patagonia
Kate Clanchy
After the Lunch
Wendy Cope
From The Prophet (2)
Khalil Gibran
The Keyboard and the Mouse
Sophie Hannah
Friendship
Elizabeth Jennings
Tell Me
Elizabeth Jennings
Husband to Wife: Party Going
Brian Jones
Benediction
Stanley Kunitz
A Lovely Song for Jackson
V. R. Lang
The Owl and the Pussy Cat
Edward Lear
Touching Your Face
Tom Leonard
Sundaysong
Liz Lochhead
To a Friend
Amy Lowell
From Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Accidents of Birth
William Meredith
The Call
Charlotte Mew
From Now We Are Six
A. A. Milne
The Confirmation
Edwin Muir
From The Book and the Brotherhood
Iris Murdoch
I Do, I Will, I Have
Ogden Nash
To My Valentine
Ogden Nash
We Don't Need to Leave Yet, Do We? Or, Yes We Do 79
Ogden Nash
From a Wedding Sermon
Mark Oakley
Quiet Song in Time of Chaos
Eugene O'Neill
It Takes Years to Marry
Theodore Parker
You're Sylvia Plath
Sometimes
Sheenagh Pugh
From Everything to Lose: Diaries 1945-1960
Frances Partridge
A Birthday
Christina G. Rossetti
I Am Completely Different
Kuroda Saburo
Sonnet 29
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 116
William Shakespeare
Love's Philosophy
Percy Bysshe Shelley
From A Marriage of True Minds
George Spater and Ian Parsons
My Wife
Robert Louis Stevenson
From Virginibus Puerisque
Robert Louis Stevenson
Not Love Perhaps
A. S. J. Tessimond
After Years of Listening, A Stone Comes to Life
James Tipton
Gift 98
R. S. Thomas
Dead Still 99
Andrei Voznesensky
The Mournes 100
Helen Waddell
The Old Words 101
David Wagoner
FromTales of Men and Ghosts 102
Edith Wharton
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven 103
W. B. Yeats
Hymns
All things bright and beautiful 107
• praise ye the Lord! 108
And did those feet in ancient time 110
• Jesus, I have promised 111
He who would valiant be 113
I danced in the morning 114
Immortal, invisible, God only wise 115
Come down, O Love divine 116
Tell out, my soul 117
Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us 118
Morning has broken 119
Make me a channel of your peace 120
• worship the King 121
• perfect Love, all human thought transcending 123
King of glory, King of peace
124
Let all the world in every corner sing
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven
• Love that wilt not let me go
Angel-voices ever singing
God is Love: let heav'n adore him
Now thank we all our God
The Lord's my shepherd
Lord of all hopefulness
Love Divine, all loves excelling
O thou who camest from above
Guide me, O thou great Redeemer
Dear Lord and Father of mankind
