Dark Love Poems & Wedding Readings for a Goth Inspired Ceremony

 

True love isn’t always sunshine and daisies…

 

Sometimes it’s moonlight and black lace. 

 

We love to see two glamourous goths meet, fall in love, and begin planning a deliciously dark wedding! 

 

Unfortunately, most popular wedding readings are saccharine sweet and full of upbeat fluff that’s fine for a Hallmark wedding in the Hamptons, but that makes the rest of us scrunch our shadowed brows and cringe in our chairs. 

 

In the spirit of spooky season, upcoming fall and winter weddings, and all you spooky-hearted lovers...

 

The love poems and lyrics below contain both brooding and beauty, a smidge of spooky sweetness, and lines that have been making gothic hearts flutter and swoon for years (sometimes centuries). 

 

If you’re planning or officiating a goth wedding, add one of these verses to a simple wedding ceremony outline, mix and match your favorite imagery, or let them inspire you to write your own. 

Next, ask a friend or relative to get ordained online to officiate your wedding.
 
Then, visit our Wedding Ceremony Script Library for sample wedding scripts to get started.

 

 

1. She Walks in Beauty

By Lord Byron 

 

Theme: A raven-haired beauty on a romantic starry night

 

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

 

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

 

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

 

 

2. “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art”

By John Keats

 

Theme: To spend eternity laying here with you

 

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
         Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
         Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
         Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
         Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
         Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
         Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

 

 

 

Photo taken by @markhortonphotos via @til_death_do_us_part

 

 

3. Lime Tree Arbour

By Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

 

Theme: Love is stronger than ‘til death do us part’

 

Boatman calls from the lake
A lone loon dives upon the water
I put my hand over hers
Down in the lime tree arbour

 

The wind in the trees is whispering
Whispering low that I love her
She puts her hand over mine
Down in the lime tree arbour

 

Through every breath that I breathe
And every place I go
There is a hand that protects me
And I do love her so

 

Always be suffering
It flows through life like water
I put my hand over hers
Down in the lime tree arbour

 

The boatman he has gone
And the loons have flown for cover
She puts her hand over mine
Down in the lime tree arbour

 

Through every word that I speak
And every thing I know
There is hand that protects me
And I do love her so

 

 

 

 

 

4. An Invite, to Eternity

By John Clare

 

Theme: To walk together through eternity

 

Wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of night and dark obscurity;
Where the path has lost its way,
Where the sun forgets the day,
Where there's nor life nor light to see,
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me!

 

Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
Where plains will rise like ocean waves,
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And mountains darken into caves,

Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity,
Where parents live and are forgot,
And sisters live and know us not!

 

Say, maiden; wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be,
To live in death and be the same,
Without this life or home or name,
At once to be and not to be -
That was and is not -yet to see
Things pass like shadows, and the sky
Above, below, around us lie?

 

The land of shadows wilt thou trace
And look nor know each other's face.
The present mixed with reasons gone,
And past and present all as one.
Say maiden, can thy life be led
To join the living to the dead?
Then trace thy footsteps on with me,
We're wed to one eternity.

 

 

 

5. The Last Beat of My Heart

By Siouxsie and the Banshees

 

Theme: Love is vulnerable, raw, and true

 

In the sharp gust of love my memory stirred
When time wreathed a rose a garland of shame
It's thorn my only delight war torn
Afraid to speak, we dare to breathe

 

Majestic, imperial a bridge of sighs
Solitude sails in a wave of forgiveness
On angels wings

 

Reach out your hands, don't turn your back
Don't walk away
How in the world, can I wish for this?
Never to be torn apart
Close to you 'till the last beat of my heart

 

At the close of day the sunset cloaks
These words in shadow play
Here and now, long and loud
My heart cries out
And the naked bone of an echo says
Don't walk away

 

Reach out your hands I'm just a step away
How in the world can I wish for this?
Never to be torn apart
Close to you till the last beat of my heart

 

How in the world can I wish for this?
Never to be torn apart till the last beat
Till the last fleeting beat of my heart
 

 

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You might also like: 

 

• 12 Love Poems for Your Wedding Ceremony
   
• The Cure’s Best Love Song Lyrics for Your Wedding Vows or Ceremony Script

 

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