On Love by Kahlil Gibran Extract

For this wedding reading, we’ve taken an extract from On Love by Kahlil Gibran. On Love originally appears in the second part of Kahlil Gibran’s best-known work “The Prophet”. This wedding poem is a thoughtful meditation on spiritual or divine love by the prophet, Al Mustafa. Stick with us for this one. According to the prophet, divine love is different from all the other forms of love. It has two aspects. On one hand, divine love is said to feed or pleasure the soul. On the other hand, a person has to first undergo pain to reap the benefits of it. The poem says that a person has to think unselfishly and accept whatever comes your way from whatever higher power you believe in. Ultimately, this extract from On Love by Khalil Gibran gives a list of criteria to live by. It suggests that even though love can hurt sometimes, you should still love freely and willingly. When you love so much that it hurts and when your love supersedes any physical desires, then you’ll know it’s true. If this is the reading for you, download the free PDF version of this poem.

Extract from On Love

by Kahlil Gibran

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
  But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
  To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
  To know the pain of too much tenderness.
  To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
    And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
  To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
  To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
  To return home at eventide with gratitude;
  And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Is On Love by Khalil Gibran the wedding reading for you? Speaking of love, you’ll want to check out our roundup of wedding readings about love for similar suggestions to this! Have you considered what music you’ll play at your wedding ceremony? Here are our favourite songs to walk down the aisle to. It’s a good place to start.