Famous Wed Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Ballad of Hell

...
And broke the crimson seal.

'My love, there is no help on earth,
No help in heaven; the dead-man's bell
Must toll our wedding; our first hearth
Must be the well-paved floor of hell.'

The colour died from out her face,
Her eyes like ghostly candles shone;
She cast dread looks about the place,
Then clenched her teeth and read right on.

'I may not pass the prison door;
Here must I rot from day to day,
Unless I wed whom I abhor,
My cousin, Blanche of Valencay.

'At midnight w...Read more of this...
by Davidson, John


Beowulf (Old English)

...sent
to favor the folk, feeling their woe
that erst they had lacked an earl for leader
so long a while; the Lord endowed him,
the Wielder of Wonder, with world’s renown.
Famed was this Beowulf: {0a} far flew the boast of him,
son of Scyld, in the Scandian lands.
So becomes it a youth to quit him well
with his father’s friends, by fee and gift,
that to aid him, aged, in after days,
come warriors willing, should war draw nigh,
liegemen loyal: by lauded deeds
shall a...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,

By The Fire-Side

...uth, by green degrees.

VI.

I follow wherever I am led,
Knowing so well the leader's hand:
Oh woman-country, wooed not wed,
Loved all the more by earth's male-lands,
Laid to their hearts instead!

VII.

Look at the ruined chapel again
Half-way up in the Alpine gorge!
Is that a tower, I point you plain,
Or is it a mill, or an iron-forge
Breaks solitude in vain?

VIII.

A turn, and we stand in the heart of things:
The woods are round us, heaped and dim;
From slab to slab how i...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Custer

...this brief existence, not alone
Do our lives gather what our hands have sown, 
But we reap, too, what others long ago
Sowed, careless of the harvests that might grow.
Thus hour by hour the humblest human souls
Inscribe in cipher on unending scrolls, 
The history of nations yet to be; 
Incite fierce bloody wars, to rage from sea to sea, 

XIII.

Or pave the way to peace. There is no past, 
So deathless are events-results so vast.
And he who strives to make one act or hour
Stan...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Endymion: Book IV

...Dian's feast would be away?
For all the golden bowers of the day
Are empty left? Who, who away would be
From Cynthia's wedding and festivity?
Not Hesperus: lo! upon his silver wings
He leans away for highest heaven and sings,
Snapping his lucid fingers merrily!--
Ah, Zephyrus! art here, and Flora too!
Ye tender bibbers of the rain and dew,
Young playmates of the rose and daffodil,
Be careful, ere ye enter in, to fill
 Your baskets high
With fennel green, and balm, and golden...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Enoch Arden

...oud in merrymaking,
Had his dark hour unseen, and rose and past
Bearing a lifelong hunger in his heart. 

So these were wed, and merrily rang the bells,
And merrily ran the years, seven happy years,
Seven happy years of health and competence,
And mutual love and honorable toil;
With children; first a daughter. In him woke,
With his first babe's first cry, the noble wish
To save all earnings to the uttermost,
And give his child a better bringing-up
Than his had been, or hers; ...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Humanitad

...s, where the wain
Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer's day
From the low meadows up the narrow lane;
Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep
Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep

From the shut stable to the frozen stream
And back again disconsolate, and miss
The bawling shepherds and the noisy team;
And overhead in circling listlessness
The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack,
Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the ice-po...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

Last Instructions to a Painter

...s head does bear, 
And both of them alike French martyrs were. 
Court officers, as used, the next place took, 
And followed, Fox, but with disdainful look. 
His birth, his youth, his brokage all dispraise 
In vain, for always he commands that pays. 
Then the procurers under Progers filed-- 
Gentlest of men-- and his lieutenant mild, 
Brounker--Love's squire--through all the field arrayed, 
No troop was better clad, nor so well paid. 
Then marched the troop of Clarendon, all f...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime 
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl, 
When Adam waked, so customed; for his sleep 
Was aery-light, from pure digestion bred, 
And temperate vapours bland, which the only sound 
Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, 
Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song 
Of birds on every bough; so much the more 
His wonder was to find unwakened Eve 
With tresses disc...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Samson Agonistes

...uch thy self,
Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides;
Yet truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder
Why thou shouldst wed Philistian women rather
Then of thine own Tribe fairer, or as fair,
At least of thy own Nation, and as noble.

Sam: The first I saw at Timna, and she pleas'd
Mee, not my Parents, that I sought to wed, 
The daughter of an Infidel: they knew not
That what I motion'd was of God; I knew
From intimate impulse, and therefore urg'd
The Marriage on; that by occa...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Ballad of the White Horse

...of the sea.

And he saw in a little picture,
Tiny and far away,
His mother sitting in Egbert's hall,
And a book she showed him, very small,
Where a sapphire Mary sat in stall
With a golden Christ at play.

It was wrought in the monk's slow manner,
From silver and sanguine shell,
Where the scenes are little and terrible,
Keyholes of heaven and hell.

In the river island of Athelney,
With the river running past,
In colours of such simple creed
All things sprang at him, sun and...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Bride of Abydos

...that he who comes to woo 
Is kinsman of the Bey Oglou: 
His years need scarce a thought employ: 
I would not have thee wed a boy. 
And thou shalt have a noble dower: 
And his and my united power 
Will laugh to scorn the death-firman, 
Which others tremble but to scan, 
And teach the messenger what fate 
The bearer of such boon may wait, [8] 
And now thy know'st thy father's will; 
All that thy sex hath need to know: 
'Twas mine to teach obedience still — 
The way to love, th...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Dream

...but in hers:
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
Which coloured all his objects;—he had ceased
To live within himself: she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all; upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Growth of Love

...have hurt a meaner thing. 

15
Who builds a ship must first lay down the keel
Of health, whereto the ribs of mirth are wed:
And knit, with beams and knees of strength, a bed
For decks of purity, her floor and ceil.
Upon her masts, Adventure, Pride, and Zeal,
To fortune's wind the sails of purpose spread:
And at the prow make figured maidenhead
O'erride the seas and answer to the wheel. 
And let him deep in memory's hold have stor'd
Water of Helicon: and let him fit
The needl...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Holy Grail

...om me 
Than sister; and if ever holy maid 
With knees of adoration wore the stone, 
A holy maid; though never maiden glowed, 
But that was in her earlier maidenhood, 
With such a fervent flame of human love, 
Which being rudely blunted, glanced and shot 
Only to holy things; to prayer and praise 
She gave herself, to fast and alms. And yet, 
Nun as she was, the scandal of the Court, 
Sin against Arthur and the Table Round, 
And the strange sound of an adulterous race, 
Across...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Knights Tale

...
What with his wisdom and his chivalry,
He conquer'd all the regne of Feminie,
That whilom was y-cleped Scythia;
And weddede the Queen Hippolyta
And brought her home with him to his country
With muchel* glory and great solemnity, *great
And eke her younge sister Emily,
And thus with vict'ry and with melody
Let I this worthy Duke to Athens ride,
And all his host, in armes him beside.

And certes, if it n'ere* too long to hear, *were not
I would have told you fully the manne...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Lady of the Lake

...pause was heard aloud
        Thine ardent symphony sublime and high!
     Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bowed;
        For still the burden of thy minstrelsy
     Was Knighthood's dauntless deed, and Beauty's matchless eye.

     O, wake once more! how rude soe'er the hand
        That ventures o'er thy magic maze to stray;
     O, wake once more! though scarce my skill command
        Some feeble echoing of thine earlier lay:
     Though harsh and faint...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Millers Tale

...righte's cap*." *fooled the carpenter*
The Reeve answer'd and saide, "*Stint thy clap*, *hold your tongue*
Let be thy lewed drunken harlotry.
It is a sin, and eke a great folly
To apeiren* any man, or him defame, *injure
And eke to bringe wives in evil name.
Thou may'st enough of other thinges sayn."
This drunken Miller spake full soon again,
And saide, "Leve brother Osewold,
Who hath no wife, he is no cuckold.
But I say not therefore that thou art one;
There be full goode wi...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

The Thorn

...y, happy still  Whene'er she thought of Stephen Hill. XII.   And they had fix'd the wedding-day,  The morning that must wed them both;  But Stephen to another maid  Had sworn another oath;  And with this other maid to church  Unthinking Stephen went—  Poor Martha! on that woful day  A cruel, cruel fire, they say,  Into her bones was sent:  It dried her...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Wife of Baths Tale

...be God that *is etern on live),* *lives eternally*
Husbands at the church door have I had five,2
For I so often have y-wedded be,
And all were worthy men in their degree.
But me was told, not longe time gone is
That sithen* Christe went never but ones *since
To wedding, in the Cane* of Galilee, *Cana
That by that ilk* example taught he me, *same
That I not wedded shoulde be but once.
Lo, hearken eke a sharp word for the nonce,* *occasion
Beside a welle Jesus, God and man,
Sp...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey

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