A Blessing
He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.
The Song of Songs which is Solomon's , 2: 4
Some say marriages are made in heaven
While others all their lives for love have striven;
But we can find in each the joy supremely human:
Long may our several lives its light illumine.
Though rains may tumble down and storms dismay us
This love will bear us up, will not betray us,
Whatever perils may rise up to bar you,
For hand-in-hand our way is strait and narrow.
Of all the blessings planned on us bestowing
With children all around in fullness growing.
Young life springs up anew each new day dawning
Like flowers in the dew of a spring morning.
Whom God has joined as one let no man sunder;
The still small voice of love drowns out the thunder.
Today comes by but once and we will treasure
Its memory long since, our hearts to pleasure.
So blessings be on those, this great step taking,
Vows, they remind us all, we should be making.
Like Solomon of old, the love we bear each other
Reflects the love of God; there is no other.
Tune: The Blacksmith (English traditional folk song).
September 3, 1994, revised February 21, 2002
I used this tune for this song that I've been singing at my friends' weddings (or "partnerships") since 1994, most recently for Rahel Guzelian and Tony Charnock. It is significant, perhaps, that I chose the melody of a song about betrayed love for this lyric of enduring passion:
"Strange news is come to town, strange news is carried,
Strange news flies up and down that my love is married.
I wish them both much joy, though they don't hear me
And may God reward him well for the slighting of me."
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