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Famous Marriages Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Marriages poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous marriages poems. These examples illustrate what a famous marriages poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Piercy, Marge
...ave been your friend.
I would have cooked for you and held you.
I might have rattled the windows

of your sorry marriages, but I would
have loved you better than you know
how to love yourselves, bitter sisters....Read more of this...



by Carman, Bliss
...ee them bow with grief, 
Or dance for joy like any aspen leaf; 
But that is brief. 

They have mad wars and phantom marriages; 
Nor seem to guess 
There are dimensions still, 
Beyond thought's reach, though not beyond love's will, 
For soul to fill. 

And some I call my friends, and make believe 
Their spirits grieve, 
Brood, and rejoice with mine; 
I talk to them in phrases quaint and fine 
Over the wine; 

I tell them all my secrets; touch their hands; 
One understa...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...ereon the founders lived and died
Seemed once more dear than life; ancestral trees,
Or gardens rich in memory glorified
Marriages, alliances and families,
And every bride's ambition satisfied.
Where fashion or mere fantasy decrees
We shift about - all that great glory spent -
Like some poor Arab tribesman and his tent.

We were the last romantics - chose for theme
Traditional sanctity and loveliness;
Whatever's written in what poets name
The book of the people; whatev...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...cts seemed to hold 
 The reflex of its mighty kings of old; 
 Their great events had witness in these walls, 
 Their marriages were here and funerals, 
 And mostly here it was that they were born; 
 And here crowned Barons ruled with pride and scorn; 
 Cradle of Scythian majesty this place. 
 Now each new master of this ancient race 
 A duty owed to ancestors which he 
 Was bound to carry on. The law's decree 
 It was that he should pass alone the night 
 Which mad...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...er got will leave me out of pocket.

A couple sat on the next bench

Are earnestly discussing child custody, broken marriages,

Failed affairs, social service interventions – 

Even here I cannot escape complexity

"I should never have slept with her once we split" 

"The kids are what matters when it comes to the bottom line"

"Is he poisoning their minds against me?" 


Part of me nags to offer help but I’ve too much

On already and the clock keeps ticking.

"It’s a...Read more of this...



by Larkin, Philip
...Never before or since 
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy 
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a littlewhile longer:
Never such innocence again.

1964...Read more of this...

by Matthews, William
...e, topsoil gets peeled away 
by floods. And worse than what we can't 
control is what we could; those drab
scuttled marriages we shed so
gratefully may auger we're on our owns

for good reason. "Hi, honey," chirps Dread
when I come through the door; "you're home."
Experience is a great teacher 
of the value of experience, 
its claustrophobic prudence,
its gloomy name-the-disasters-

in-advance charisma. Listen, 
my wary one, it's far too late
to unlove each ot...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...aven 
Rescued, had in his righteousness been lost? 
To whom thus Michael. These are the product 
Of those ill-mated marriages thou sawest; 
Where good with bad were matched, who of themselves 
Abhor to join; and, by imprudence mixed, 
Produce prodigious births of body or mind. 
Such were these giants, men of high renown; 
For in those days might only shall be admired, 
And valour and heroick virtue called; 
To overcome in battle, and subdue 
Nations, and bring home sp...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...problem, " he said to Mr. Norris. "The best

thing I know for remembering the names of children from

previous marriages, is to go out camping, try a little trout

fishing. Trout fishing is one of the best things in the world

for remembering children's names."

 "Is that right?" Mr. Norris said.

 "Yeah, " the guy said.

 "That sounds like an idea, " Mr. Norris said. "I've got to

do something. Sometimes I think one of them is named C...Read more of this...

by Swift, Jonathan
...now befell her, 
And in a Glass had made her see 
A serving-Man of low Degree: 
It was her Fate; must be forgiven; 
For Marriages were made in Heaven: 
His Pardon begg'd, but to be plain, 
She'd do't if 'twere to do again. 
Thank God, 'twas neither Shame nor Sin, 
For John was come of honest Kin: 
Love never thinks of Rich and Poor, 
She'd beg with John from Door to Door: 
Forgive her, if it be a Crime, 
She'll never do't another Time, 
She ne'r before in all her Life 
On...Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...Nothing to say to all those marriages!
She had made three herself to three of his.
The score was even for them, three to three.
But come to die she found she cared so much:
She thought of children in a burial row;
Three children in a burial row were sad.
One man's three women in a burial row
Somehow made her impatient with the man.
And so she said to Laban, "You have do...Read more of this...

by Olds, Sharon
...I have heard about the civilized, 
the marriages run on talk, elegant and honest, rational. But you and I are 
savages. You come in with a bag, 
hold it out to me in silence. 
I know Moo Shu Pork when I smell it 
and understand the message: I have 
pleased you greatly last night. We sit 
quietly, side by side, to eat, 
the long pancakes dangling and spilling, 
fragrant sauce dripp...Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...ength for the act,
Last thoughts, memories, asking how I am here!
After wandering afar, over the world,
Life in cities, marriages, motehrhood--
(They all married, and I am homeless, alone.)
Grandmother! I have not lacked in strength,
Nor will, nor courage. No! I have honored you
With a life that used these gifts of your blood.
But I was caught in trap after trap in the years.
At last the cruelist trap of all.
Then I fought the bars, pried open the door,
Cr...Read more of this...

by Brooks, Gwendolyn
...e your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches,
and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?--
Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.
But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how ...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...ides, 
My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May. 

June 

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine 
The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights 
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine, 
The foliage of the valleys and the heights. 
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights; 
The mower's scythe makes music to my ear; 
I am the mother of all dear delights; 
I am the fairest daughter of the year. 

July

My emblem is the Lion, and I breathe 
The bre...Read more of this...

by Cowper, William
...joy to some;
To him indiff'rent whether grief or joy.
Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet
With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,
Or charg'd with am'rous sighs of absent swains,
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect
His horse and him, unconscious of them all.
But oh th' important budget! usher'd in
With such heart-shaking music, who can say
What are its tidings? have ...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
..., and for
Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem

Just long enough to settle hats and say 
 I nearly died,
A dozen marriages got under way. 
They watched the landscape, sitting side by side
- An Odeon went past, a cooling tower, And 
someone running up to bowl - and none 
Thought of the others they would never meet 
Or how their lives would all contain this hour. 
I thought of London spread out in the sun, 
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:

Ther...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...vigilies,* and to processions, *festival-eves22
To preachings eke, and to these pilgrimages,
To plays of miracles, and marriages,
And weared upon me gay scarlet gites.* *gowns
These wormes, nor these mothes, nor these mites
On my apparel frett* them never a deal** *fed **whit
And know'st thou why? for they were used* well. *worn
Now will I telle forth what happen'd me:
I say, that in the fieldes walked we,
Till truely we had such dalliance,
This clerk and I, that of ...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...ancient Maids, who ne'er must prove
The early joys of youth and love,
Whose names grim Fate (to whom 'twas given,
When marriages were made in heaven)
Survey'd with unrelenting scowl,
And struck them from the muster-roll;
Or set you by, in dismal sort,
For wintry bachelors to court;
Or doom'd to lead your faded lives,
Heirs to the joys of former wives;
Attend! nor fear in state forlorn,
To shun the pointing hand of scorn,
Attend, if lonely age you dread,
And wish to please, o...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...ich we were?
Or, that oaths made in reverential fear
Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear?
Or, as true deaths, true marriages untie,
So lovers' contracts, images of those,
Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose?
 Or, your own end to justify,
For having purposed change, and falsehood, you
Can have no way but falsehood to be true?
Vain lunatic, against these 'scapes I could
 Dispute, and conquer, if I would,
 Which I abstain to do,
For by tomorrow, I may think so ...Read more of this...

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