The Wedding Picture Poem by Alicia Patti

Within this antique-crafted frame
They glow in effervescent light,
No trace of future pain proclaimed
On faded faces in black and white.

A garland for her holy head,
Suffused in saintly silver ray;
A perfume-scented posy bed
Nestled for her love bouquet.

Between that day and this
What joy and pain they shared.
Would they live again such bliss
At present being thus compared?

Long and long their wedding vows
Waned naught for fortune’s sorrowing.
He gave her all that love allows;
She gave her all-in-all to him.

He was the dreamer of her dreams;
She, the singer of his songs.
She was the helpmeet of his schemes;
He, her arbiter of wrongs.

Now, in this faded, tinted guise,
They still abide in my soul’s eye:
My loving parents, idolized,
For love like theirs will never die.