Marriage poems
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Lines in Praise of the Lyric Club Banquet
© William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1894, and on the 5th of September,
Which for a long time I will remember,
And the gentlemen I entertained in the city of Perth,
Which is one of the grandest cities upon the earth.
Hanchen, the Maid of the Mill
© William Topaz McGonagall
Near the village of Udorf, on the banks of the Rhine,
There lived a miller and his family, once on a time;
And there yet stands the mill in a state of decay,
And concerning the miller and his family, attend to my lay.
Grif, of the Bloody Hand
© William Topaz McGonagall
In an immense wood in the south of Kent,
There lived a band of robbers which caused the people discontent;
And the place they infested was called the Weald,
Where they robbed wayside travellers and left them dead on the field.
Grace Darling
© William Topaz McGonagall
As the night was beginning to close in one rough September day
In the year of 1838, a steamer passed through the Fairway
Between the Farne Islands and the coast, on her passage northwards;
But the wind was against her, and the steamer laboured hard.
Annie Marshall the Foundling
© William Topaz McGonagall
Annie Marshall was a foundling, and lived in Downderry,
And was trained up by a coast-guardsman, kind-hearted and merry
And he loved Annie Marshall as dear as his life,
And he resolved to make her his own loving wife.
Celebates
© Robert William Service
They must not wed the Doctor said,
For they were far from strong,
And children of their marriage bed
Might not live overlong.
My Rival
© Robert William Service
Oh did she ever dream of Jack?
The boy who nevermore came back,
And never will, I heard that he
Was drowned in the China Sea.
The Lottery
© Robert William Service
"Young fellow, listen to a friend:
Beware of wedlock - 'tis a gamble,
It's MAN who holds the losing end
In every matrimonial scramble."
Soldier Boy
© Robert William Service
My soldier boy has crossed the sea
To fight the foeman;
But he'll come back to make of me
And honest woman.
The Equilibrists
© John Crowe Ransom
Full of her long white arms and milky skin
He had a thousand times remembered sin.
Alone in the press of people traveled he,
Minding her jacinth, and myrrh, and ivory.
Lover's Gifts XLIII: Dying, You Have Left Behind
© Rabindranath Tagore
Dying, you have left behind you the great sadness of the Eternal
in my life. You have painted my thought's horizon with the sunset
colours of your departure, leaving a track of tears across the
earth to love's heaven. Clasped in your dear arms, life and death
From 'The Testament of Beauty'
© Robert Seymour Bridges
'Twas at that hour of beauty when the setting sun
squandereth his cloudy bed with rosy hues, to flood
his lov'd works as in turn he biddeth them Good-night;
and all the towers and temples and mansions of men
An Epitaph On The Marchioness Of Winchester
© John Milton
This rich Marble doth enterr
The honour'd Wife of Winchester,
A Vicounts daughter, an Earls heir,
Besides what her vertues fair
Paradise Lost: Book 08
© John Milton
The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice, that he a while
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear;
Then, as new waked, thus gratefully replied.
Paradise Lost: Book 11
© John Milton
Undoubtedly he will relent, and turn
From his displeasure; in whose look serene,
When angry most he seemed and most severe,
What else but favour, grace, and mercy, shone?
Paradise Lost: Book 05
© John Milton
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,
Samson Agonistes
© John Milton
Chor: In seeking just occasion to provoke
The Philistine, thy Countries Enemy,
Thou never wast remiss, I hear thee witness:
Yet Israel still serves with all his Sons.
The Witch Of Atlas
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
Before those cruel twins whom at one birth
Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,
Error and Truth, had hunted from the earth
All those bright natures which adorned its prime,
The Habit Of Perfection
© Gerard Manley Hopkins
Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.
The Glove
© Robert Browning
``Your heart's queen, you dethrone her?
``So should I!''---cried the King---``'twas mere vanity,
``Not love, set that task to humanity!''
Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing
From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing.
