Song of the Day - 13th November

Today's Song of the Day is the second of my songs on the theme of weddings. It is a setting of a poem entitled "Marriage Morning" by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892).

Tennyson is probably one of Britain's most famous poets. He was Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign and penned such greats as "The Charge of the Light Brigade" which gave us the immortal lines "Into the Valley of Death / Rode the six hundred" and "Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die."

A number of phrases from Tennyson's work have become commonplace in the English language, including "Nature, red in tooth and claw" ("In Memoriam A.H.H."), "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all".

"Marriage Morning" is a beautiful short poem wherein Tennyson describes the morning of the marriage to his beloved as the "golden morning of love" and asks the question "Heart, are you great enough / For a love that never tires?"

Get the music for this song for free - find out how here.

Marriage Morning

By Alfred Lord Tennyson

Light, so low upon earth,

You send a flash to the sun.

Here is the golden close of love,

All my wooing is done.

Oh, the woods and the meadows,

Woods where we hid from the wet,

Stiles where we stay'd to be kind,

Meadows in which we met!

Light, so low in the vale

You flash and lighten afar,

For this is the golden morning of love,

And you are his morning star.

Flash, I am coming, I come,

By meadow and stile and wood,

Oh, lighten into my eyes and heart,

Into my heart and my blood!

Heart, are you great enough

For a love that never tires?

O heart, are you great enough for love?

I have heard of thorns and briers.

Over the thorns and briers,

Over the meadows and stiles,

Over the world to the end of it

Flash for a million miles.