Sonnets for the Wedding

I am performing as the minister in the wedding of two very dear friends of mine (my best friends in the whole world, actually) and another friend of ours will be reading a sonnet at the wedding. So I was looking over Shakespeare's Sonnets recently and I found some really great stuff for the wedding. I also (of course) came across my absolute favorite of Shakespeare's sonnets. Thought I'd share that today, since this blog has been so lately obsessed with the past and since I've been spending so much time reading about queerness and its particular melancholies. This is not going to be in the wedding, obviously.

Shakespeare's Sonnet 43:

When most I wink, then do my eyes best see;

For all the day they view things unrespected,

But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,

And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.

Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright,

How would thy shadow's form form happy show

To the clear day with thy much clearer light,

When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so?

How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made

By looking on thee in the living day,

When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade

Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay?

All days are nights to see till I see thee,

And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.