Marriage poetry

For my upcoming wedding, we're going to have some family members read a couple of poems. The standard choice for marriage poetry seems to be the Shakespeare sonnet "Let me not to the marriage of true minds." Not a bad poem, but my fiance and I wanted to avoid the obvious choice. As the English major in our relationship, I took on the task of finding a suitable alternative. Unfortunately, good love poetry is actually hard to find, especially since I have a taste for the sardonic or bitter. My favorite Shakespearean sonnet, for example, is all about how love is built on nothing but lies. Eventually, though, I came upon a poem by Edmund Spenser, who wrote roughly a generation before Shakespeare. For fun, I'll give it in the original Early Modern English spelling (u and v are interchangeable).

Sonnet 65 from Amoretti

The doubt which ye misdeem, fayre loue, is vaine
That fondly feare to loose your liberty,
when loosing one, two liberties ye gayne,
and make him bond that bondage earst dyd fly.
Sweet be the bands, the which true loue doth tye,
without constraynt or dread of any ill:
the gentle birde feeles no captiuity
within her cage, but singes and feeds her fill.
There pride dare not approch, nor discord spill
the league twixt them, that loyal loue hath bound:
but simple truth and mutuall good will,
seekes with sweet peace to salue each others woud
There fayth doth fearlesse dwell in brasen towre,
and spotlesse pleasure builds her sacred bowre.

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