15poems & readings

Anniversary Poems

Poems for the long game of love: lines for cards, toasts, and the people still choosing each other after the wedding photographs stopped being flattering.

Anniversary poems have a harder job than wedding poems. A wedding poem only has to be hopeful; an anniversary poem has to be true about a specific number of years. That is why Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 has become the standard reading — it defines love as the thing that "alters not when it alteration finds", which is a claim about endurance rather than romance, and endurance is what an anniversary is celebrating.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'How Do I Love Thee?' (Sonnet 43) is the warmer choice and the better one for a card, because it counts ways rather than years. Burns's 'A Red, Red Rose' is the shortest of the three and the easiest to say out loud without your voice going. For a toast, quote four lines and then say one plain sentence of your own — what you have watched them do for each other. The borrowed lines carry the feeling; the specific sentence is what people remember.

LengthForm

When You Are Old

W. B. Yeats · 1893

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,And nodding by the fire, take down this book,And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

12 lines · lyric

To My Dear and Loving Husband

Anne Bradstreet · 1678

If ever two were one, then surely we.If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.If ever wife was happy in a man,

12 lines · lyric

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

William Shakespeare · 1609

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

14 lines · sonnet

Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

William Shakespeare · 1609

Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,

14 lines · sonnet

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning · 1850

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

14 lines · sonnet

A Red, Red Rose

Robert Burns · 1794

O my Luve is like a red, red roseThat's newly sprung in June;O my Luve is like the melody

16 lines · ballad

Roses Are Red (I Would Still Pick You)

The QuillOak Editors

Roses are red, as they were at the start,when I practiced your name and rehearsed every part;the petals have changed, but the question stays true:

4 lines · roses are red

One More Year of We

The QuillOak Editors

One more year of "where's my keys?",of "taste this," and "come see" —one more year I'd trade for nothing:

4 lines · quatrain

Two Cups

The QuillOak Editors

Marriage is two cupson one small shelf —not matching, never matching,

7 lines · free verse

Slow Dance in the Kitchen

The QuillOak Editors

We never learned the proper steps,we sway more than we dance,the dinner's burning on the stove,

8 lines · lyric

Still

The QuillOak Editors

After all the years and weather,after every flight delayed,after arguments in IKEA

8 lines · lyric

Two Degrees

The QuillOak Editors

We battle on the thermostat —you win by two degrees;I get you back in hoodie theft

8 lines · lyric

The Secret

The QuillOak Editors

Our wedding song sounds older now,the photos soft with age,but you still get top billing, love,

8 lines · lyric

The Load-Bearing Years

The QuillOak Editors

The first year gets champagne.The fiftieth gets gold.But these — the middle years,

10 lines · free verse

Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old

William Shakespeare · 1609

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,

14 lines · sonnet

Common questions

What is the best poem for an anniversary?

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 for a milestone year — it is about love surviving change. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'How Do I Love Thee?' is warmer and fits a card better.

What do you write in an anniversary card?

Four quoted lines plus one specific sentence of your own. Name something you have actually seen them do for each other — the borrowed verse sets the tone, the specific detail is what lands.