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User Rating: |
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7.7
/10
(20
votes)
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Why should a foolish marriage vow,
Which long ago was made,
Oblige us to each other now
When passion is decay'd?
We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we could,
Till our love was lov'd out in us both:
But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled:
'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.
If I have pleasures for a friend,
And farther love in store,
What wrong has he whose joys did end,
And who could give no more?
'Tis a madness that he should be jealous of me,
Or that I should bar him of another:
For all we can gain is to give our selves pain,
When neither can hinder the other.
John Dryden
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Read poems about / on: marriage, passion, friend, pain, love, joy
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Comments about this poem (Marriage A-La-Mode
by
John Dryden
) |
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Click here to write your
comments about this poem (Marriage A-La-Mode by
John Dryden
)
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Michael Harmon
(8/6/2009 3:05:00 PM) |
One last point, if I may.
I believe that poets become good (let alone great) poets not simply by What they say, but How they say it. I am always trying to improve not only on What I say, but How I say it. We may not agree with Dryden, but, then, Dryden is in the Norton Anthology, and we are not. Why?
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Michael Harmon
(8/6/2009 2:40:00 PM) |
sorry, typo, I meant Louise Bogan
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Michael Harmon
(8/6/2009 2:38:00 PM) |
trite, adj. worn out by constant use, no longer having freshness, originality, or novelty; hackneyed; stale. [Webster's New World Dictionary]
This only sounds 'trite' today because sentiments like this have been repeated for three hundred years. I don't know if Dryden was the first to write about it. But he did write about it three hundred years ago! Way before Hallmark used trite poetry for its business. There are several distorted perspectives prevalent on this site, not putting old poetry-fresh when it was first written-into its proper context, is one of them. In law, ignorance of the law is not an excuse (try doing it) . In poetry, ignorance of the poetry of the past may have an excuse, but it is easily remedied: read more of it, don't write more of it. Which leads me into another issue I have with this site.
I wish the administrators of PH would put more contemporary poems as 'Poem of the Day'. This would give all of us here much better models for our own stuff. They select too many things from previous centuries, which may be great things in their day and worthy of reading and appreciating, but not examples of how poets of today should model their own work. I have yet to see a Richard Wilbur, or Thom Gunn, or David Ferry, or Loise Bogan, or Sylvia Plath, and on and on and on...
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Claudia Krizay
(8/6/2009 2:35:00 PM) |
Still poem of the month? ?
Unbelievable?
It is pure trash.
CAK
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Ravi A
(8/6/2009 1:51:00 PM) |
Love and marriage - both have different footing. Marriage is not the expression of love alone. It forms part of family build up. Family has got its own meaning. I share the same view of Shornjoe Crockpotter. Just to have the fun of sex and love alone, why should one get married? He can easily spend a night in a red street.
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Shornjoe Crockpotter
(8/6/2009 9:13:00 AM) |
If one just wants to ride the pleasure train...why saddle the horse of marriage?
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Kevin Straw
(8/6/2009 5:42:00 AM) |
Well done, Claudia - keep with it, girl! I too am sick of the totally uncritical comments on this site. The poem: A wonderfully expression of pure cynicism. Throughly immoral - yet modern society seems to accept it as Gospel.
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Is It poetry
(8/6/2009 4:39:00 AM) |
The wording is more
than a wee bit of pleasure..
Worry about that oath..you gave..
unless you are from that trade..
Passion lays in trust..
Once the seal is broken..from
the back of both the books..
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Claudia Krizay
(8/6/2009 1:14:00 AM) |
why should i delet my message? SO tell me what will you do if I don't? What's the matter-can't you take criticism? That is sad. You must have all had it too easy. I have schizophrenia- what is YOUR excuse? ? ?
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