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Famous Short Marriage Poems

Famous Short Marriage Poems. Short Marriage Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Marriage short poems


by Ogden Nash
 To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.



by R S Thomas
 We met
 under a shower
of bird-notes.
 Fifty years passed,
love's moment
 in a world in
servitude to time.
 She was young;
I kissed with my eyes
 closed and opened
them on her wrinkles.
 `Come,' said death,
choosing her as his
 partner for
the last dance, And she,
 who in life
had done everything
 with a bird's grace,
opened her bill now
 for the shedding
of one sigh no
 heavier than a feather.

by Sarojini Naidu
 WEAVERS, weaving at break of day, 
Why do you weave a garment so gay? . . . 
Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild, 
We weave the robes of a new-born child.


Weavers, weaving at fall of night, 
Why do you weave a garment so bright? . . . 
Like the plumes of a peacock, purple and green, 
We weave the marriage-veils of a queen.


Weavers, weaving solemn and still, 
What do you weave in the moonlight chill? . . . 
White as a feather and white as a cloud, 
We weave a dead man's funeral shroud.

by Margaret Atwood
 Marriage is not 
a house or even a tent 

it is before that, and colder: 

The edge of the forest, the edge 
of the desert 
 the unpainted stairs
at the back where we squat 
outside, eating popcorn 

where painfully and with wonder 
at having survived even 
this far 

we are learning to make fire

by Sidney Lanier
 O marriage-bells, your clamor tells
Two weddings in one breath.
SHE marries whom her love compels:
-- And I wed Goodman Death!
My brain is blank, my tears are red;
Listen, O God: -- "I will," he said: --
And I would that I were dead.
Come groomsman Grief and bridesmaid Pain
Come and stand with a ghastly twain.
My Bridegroom Death is come o'er the meres
To wed a bride with bloody tears.
Ring, ring, O bells, full merrily:
Life-bells to her, death-bells to me:
O Death, I am true wife to thee!



by Richard Brautigan
 At 1:30 in the morning a fart 
smells like a marriage between
an avocado and a fish head.

I have to get out of bed
to write this down without
my glasses on.

by Denise Levertov
 Some people,
no matter what you give them,
still want the moon.

The bread,
the salt,
white meat and dark,
still hungry.

The marriage bed
and the cradle,
still empty arms.

You give them land,
their own earth under their feet,
still they take to the roads.

And water: dig them the deepest well,
still it's not deep enough
to drink the moon from.

by Emily Dickinson
 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 --

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 CUPID one day ask'd his Mother, 
When she meant that he shou'd Wed? 
You're too Young, my Boy, she said: 
Nor has Nature made another 
Fit to match with Cupid's Bed. 


Cupid then her Sight directed 
To a lately Wedded Pair; 
Where Himself the Match effected; 
They as Youthful, they as Fair. 


Having by Example carry'd 
This first Point in the Dispute; 
WORSELEY next he said's not Marry'd: 
Her's with Cupid's Charms may suit

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Move eastward, happy earth, and leave 
Yon orange sunset waning slow: 
From fringes of the faded eve, 
O, happy planet, eastward go: 
Till over thy dark shoulder glow 
Thy silver sister world, and rise 
To glass herself in dewey eyes 
That watch me from the glen below. 

Ah, bear me with thee, lightly borne, 
Dip forward under starry light, 
And move me to my marriage-morn, 
And round again to happy night.

by John Clare
 Cuckoos lead Bohemian lives, 
They fail as husbands and as wives, 
Therefore they cynically disparage 
Everybody else's marriage.

by Denise Levertov
 The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,
are heavy with it,
it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion
and are turned away, beloved,
each and each

It is leviathan and we
in its belly
looking for joy, some joy
not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of
the ache of it.

by Katherine Philips
 Forbear, bold youth; all 's heaven here,
 And what you do aver
To others courtship may appear,
 'Tis sacrilege to her.
She is a public deity;
 And were 't not very odd
She should dispose herself to be
 A petty household god? 

First make the sun in private shine
 And bid the world adieu,
That so he may his beams confine
 In compliment to you:
But if of that you do despair,
 Think how you did amiss
To strive to fix her beams which are
 More bright and large than his.

by John Montague
 Two fish float:

one slowly downstream
into the warm
currents of the known

the other tugging
against the stream,
disconsolate twin,

the golden 
marriage hook
tearing its throat.

by William Butler Yeats
 She lived in storm and strife,
Her soul had such desire
For what proud death may bring
That it could not endure
The common good of life,
But lived as 'twere a king
That packed his marriage day
With banneret and pennon,
Trumpet and kettledrum,
And the outrageous cannon,
To bundle time away
That the night come.

by Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Last night a pale young Moon was wed
Unto the amorous, eager Sea;
Her maiden veil of mist she wore
His kingly purple vesture, he. 

With her a bridal train of stars
Walked sisterly through shadows dim,
And, master minstrel of the world,
The great Wind sang the marriage hymn. 

Thus came she down the silent sky
Unto the Sea her faith to plight,
And the grave priest who wedded them
Was ancient, sombre-mantled Night.

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 EVEN this heavenly pair were unequally match'd when united:

Psyche grew older and wise, Amor remain'd still a child,

 1789.*

by Barry Tebb
 Your voice on the telephone

Hushes the storm in my heart

Lightning strikes twice

In the same place.



I cannot picture your face

No photograph, no keepsake,

No letters scented with your smile,

No ring or marriage bed.





Your kisses were the best

I ever had, my first,

My only valentine.

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 I WHO all the winter through
Cherished other loves than you,
And kept hands with hoary policy in marriage-bed and pew;
Now I know the false and true,
For the earnest sun looks through,
And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.

Now the hedged meads renew
Rustic odour, smiling hue,
And the clean air shines and tinkles as the world goes wheeling through;
And my heart springs up anew,
Bright and confident and true,
And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.

by Ben Jonson
XLVI. ? TO SIR LUCKLESS WOO-ALL.     Is this the sir, who, some waste wife to win,  A knight-hood bought, to go a wooing in? 'Tis LUCKLESS, he that took up one on band  To pay at's day of marriage. By my hand The knight-wright's cheated then !  he'll never pay :  Yes, now he wears his knighthood every day.


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