Famous Out Of Wedlock Poems by Famous Poets

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

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11. Song—Here's to thy health my bonie lass

...HERE’S to thy health, my bonie lass,
 Gude nicht and joy be wi’ thee;
I’ll come nae mair to thy bower-door,
 To tell thee that I lo’e thee.
O dinna think, my pretty pink,
 But I can live without thee:
I vow and swear I dinna care,
 How lang ye look about ye.


Thou’rt aye sae free informing me,
 Thou hast nae mind to marry;
I’ll be as free informing thee,
...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


228. To Alex. Cunningham Esq. Writer Edinburgh

...MY godlike friend—nay, do not stare,
 You think the phrase is odd-like;
But “God is love,” the saints declare,
 Then surely thou art god-like.


And is thy ardour still the same?
 And kindled still at ANNA?
Others may boast a partial flame,
 But thou art a volcano!


Ev’n Wedlock asks not love beyond
 Death’s tie-dissolving portal;
But thou, omnipotently f...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert

A Benediction Of The Air

...In every presence there is absence.

When we're together, the spaces between
Threaten to enclose our bodies
And isolate our spirits.
The mirror reflects what we are not,
And we wonder if our mate
Suspects a fatal misreading
Of our original text,
Not to mention the dreaded subtext.
Reality, we fear, mocks appearance.
Or is trapped in a hall of mirrors
Where...Read more of this...
by Williams, John

A Fairly Sad Tale

...bility of granite;
But me- I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were- shall we say?- born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song,
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
First came their parents or careers.
But ever does experience
Deny me wisdom, calm, and sense!
Though she's a fool who seeks to capture
The twenty-first fine, careless rapture,
I must go on, till ends my rope,
Who from my birth was curse...Read more of this...
by Parker, Dorothy

At The Wedding March

...God with honour hang your head,
Groom, and grace you, bride, your bed
With lissome scions, sweet scions,
Out of hallowed bodies bred. 
Each be other's comfort kind:
Déep, déeper than divined,
Divine charity, dear charity,
Fast you ever, fast bind. 

Then let the March tread our ears:
I to him turn with tears
Who to wedlock, his wonder wedlock,
Déals tríump...Read more of this...
by Hopkins, Gerard Manley


Epithalamion

...YE learn¨¨d sisters, which have oftentimes 
Beene to me ayding, others to adorne, 
Whom ye thought worthy of your gracefull rymes, 
That even the greatest did not greatly scorne 
To heare theyr names sung in your simple layes, 5 
But joy¨¨d in theyr praise; 
And when ye list your owne mishaps to mourne, 
Which death, or love, or fortunes wreck did ra...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund

Given in Marriage unto Thee

...Given in Marriage unto Thee
Oh thou Celestial Host --
Bride of the Father and the Son
Bride of the Holy Ghost.

Other Betrothal shall dissolve --
Wedlock of Will, decay --
Only the Keeper of this Ring
Conquer Mortality --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

I live with Him -- I see His face

...I live with Him -- I see His face --
I go no more away
For Visitor -- or Sundown --
Death's single privacy

The Only One -- forestalling Mine --
And that -- by Right that He
Presents a Claim invisible --
No wedlock -- granted Me --

I live with Him -- I hear His Voice --
I stand alive -- Today --
To witness to the Certainty
Of Immortality --

Taught Me -- ...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

In the Bay

...I 
Beyond the hollow sunset, ere a star
Take heart in heaven from eastward, while the west,
Fulfilled of watery resonance and rest,
Is as a port with clouds for harbour bar
To fold the fleet in of the winds from far
That stir no plume now of the bland sea's breast:II
Above the soft sweep of the breathless bay
Southwestward, far past flight of night and day...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles

Modern Love XXI: We Three Are

...We three are on the cedar-shadowed lawn; 
My friend being third. He who at love once laughed, 
Is in the weak rib by a fatal shaft 
Struck through, and tells his passion's bashful dawn 
And radiant culmination, glorious crown, 
When 'this' she said: went 'thus': most wondrous she. 
Our eyes grow white, encountering that we are three, 
Forgetful; then toget...Read more of this...
by Meredith, George

My Cicely

..."ALIVE?"--And I leapt in my wonder,
Was faint of my joyance,
And grasses and grove shone in garments
Of glory to me.

"She lives, in a plenteous well-being,
To-day as aforehand;
The dead bore the name--though a rare one--
The name that bore she."

She lived ... I, afar in the city
Of frenzy-led factions,
Had squandered green years and maturer
In bowing the...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas

Orinda upon Little Hector Philips

...Twice forty months of Wedlock did I stay,
Then had my vows crown'd with a Lovely boy,
And yet in forty days he dropt away,
O swift Visissitude of humane joy.

I did but see him and he dis-appear'd,
I did but pluck the Rose-bud and it fell,
A sorrow unforeseen and scarcely fear'd,
For ill can mortals their afflictions spell.

And now (sweet Babe) what can m...Read more of this...
by Philips, Katherine

Paradise Lost: Book 10

...Mean while the heinous and despiteful act 
Of Satan, done in Paradise; and how 
He, in the serpent, had perverted Eve, 
Her husband she, to taste the fatal fruit, 
Was known in Heaven; for what can 'scape the eye 
Of God all-seeing, or deceive his heart 
Omniscient? who, in all things wise and just, 
Hindered not Satan to attempt the mind 
Of Man, with str...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Place for a Third

...grave,
And offered her a home to rest awhile
Before she went the poor man's widow's way,
Housekeeping for the next man out of wedlock.
She and Eliza had been friends through all.
Who was she to judge marriage in a world
Whose Bible's so confused up in marriage counsel?
The sister had not come across this Laban;
A decent product of life's ironing-out;
She must not keep him waiting. Time would press
Between the death day and the funeral day.
So when she saw him coming in the s...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Poem 22

...ANd thou great Iuno, which with awful might
the lawes of wedlock still dost patronize,
And the religion of the faith first plight
With sacred rites hast taught to solemnize:
and eeke for comfort often called art
Of women in their smart,
Eternally bind thou this louely band,
And all thy blessings vnto vs impart.
And thou glad Genius, in whose gentle hand,
T...Read more of this...
by Spenser, Edmund

Samson Agonistes

...Of that sort of Dramatic Poem which is call'd Tragedy.


TRAGEDY, as it was antiently compos'd, hath been ever held the
gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other Poems:
therefore said by Aristotle to be of power by raising pity and fear,
or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is
to temper and reduce them to just measur...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Interrogation Of The Man Of Many Hearts

...permitted to kiss on the street
so I made up a song that wasn't true.
I made up a song called Marriage.

You come to me out of wedlock
and kick your foot on my stoop
and ask me to measure such things?

Never. Never. Not my real wife.
She's my real witch, my fork, my mare,
my mother of tears, my skirtful of hell,
the stamp of my sorrows, the stamp of my bruises
and also the children she might bear
and also a private place, a body of bones
that I would honestly buy, if I could ...Read more of this...
by Sexton, Anne

The Lottery

..."Young fellow, listen to a friend:
Beware of wedlock - 'tis a gamble,
It's MAN who holds the losing end
In every matrimonial scramble."

"Young lady, marriage mostly is
A cruel cross of hope's concealing.
A rarity is wedded bliss
And WOMAN gets the dirty dealing."

. . . Such my advice to man and maid,
But though they harken few will take it.
The parson pl...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Mystery Of Mister Smith

...For supper we had curried tripe.
I washed the dishes, wound the clock;
Then for awhile I smoked my pipe -
Puff! Puff! We had no word of talk.
The Misses sewed - a sober pair;
Says I at last: "I need some air."

A don't know why I acted so;
I had no thought, no plot, no plan.
I did not really mean to go -
I'm such a docile little man;
But suddenly I felt th...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Princess (part 6)

...My dream had never died or lived again. 
As in some mystic middle state I lay; 
Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard: 
Though, if I saw not, yet they told me all 
So often that I speak as having seen. 

For so it seemed, or so they said to me, 
That all things grew more tragic and more strange; 
That when our side was vanquished and my cause 
For ever los...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

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