Diamond Wedding

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By Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate

LOVE found a voice and spoke two names aloud –
two private names, though breezed through public air –
and joined them in a life where duty spoke
in languages their tenderness could share,

A life remote from ours because it asked
each day, each action to be kept in view,
and yet familiar in the trust it placed
in human hearts, in hearts remaining true.

The years stacked up and as their weight increased
they pressed the stone of time to diamond,
immortal-mortal in its brilliant strength,
a jewel of earth where lightnings correspond.

Now every facet holds a picture-glimpse:
In some, the family faces and the chance
for ordinary talk and what-comes-next;
in others, shows of pomp and circumstance.

And here, today, the diamond proves itself
as something of our own yet not our own –
a blaze of trust, the oneness made of two;
the ornament and lodestar of the crown.