Occasions Such as These Acquire Meaning

Music: Lord Willobies Welcome Home.

By William Byrd. Sequenced by John Sankey.
Occasions such as these acquire meaning
Not only in the heart but on the stage,
Your intimate agreement now convening
Our families, for we also will engage.
Union will unite two universes,
Reaching back and forward into time,
Eliciting new verses and reverses
Needed to accommodate the rhyme.
Granted, then, the Thespian component,
Albeit small, of what will now unfold,
Giving to your audience a moment
Each may in collective memory hold.
May you find in love a public beauty
Equal to your private sense of duty,
No less a part of happiness than pleasure,
Though passion sing, and rapture be your leisure.