Vows

We got to our hotel, which was amazingly drenched in artistic history. Famous poets, writers, painters, philosophers stayed there and created and conversed in the room we slept in. D.H. Lawrence painted the windows in the bathroom where I got dressed in the early dark of the morning. The afternoon before, as we were checking in, I pulled a book off the shelf in the lobby and the page fell open to this poem. I read this as part of my wedding vows.

V

AND think, there will something come forth from us.
We two, folded so small together,
There will something come forth from us.
Children, acts, utterance
Perhaps only happiness.

Perhaps only happiness will come forth from us.
Old sorrow, and new happiness.
Only that one newness.

But that is all I want.
And I am sure of that.
We are sure of that.


VI

AND yet all the while you are you, you are not me.
And I am I, I am never you.
How awfully distinct and far off from each other's being we are!

Yet I am glad.
I am so glad there is always you beyond my scope,
Something that stands over,
Something I shall never be,
That I shall always wonder over, and wait for,
Look for like the breath of life as long as I live,
Still waiting for you, however old you are, and I am,
I shall always wonder over you, and look for you.

And you will always be with me.
I shall never cease to be filled with newness,
Having you near me.


D. H. Lawrence's poem: Last Two stanzas of "Wedlock"