The Wedding (Lanier)
From Wikisource
| The Wedding by |
| Sidney Lanier composed this poem in Macon, Georgia in 1865. In the volume of complete works The Poems of Sidney Lanier, published posthumously, this poem was characterized as one his “unrevised early poems.” |
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!
