Call It a Good Marriage

Robert Graves 1895 (Wimbledon) – 1985 (Deià)



Call it a good marriage -
For no one ever questioned
Her warmth, his masculinity,
Their interlocking views;
Except one stray graphologist
Who frowned in speculation
At her h's and her s's,
His p's and w's.

Though few would still subscribe
To the monogamic axiom
That strife below the hip-bones
Need not estrange the heart,
Call it a good marriage:
More drew those two together,
Despite a lack of children,
Than pulled them apart.

Call it a good marriage:
They never fought in public,
They acted circumspectly
And faced the world with pride;
Thus the hazards of their love-bed
Were none of our damned business -
Till as jurymen we sat on
Two deaths by suicide.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 23, 2023

36 sec read
143

Quick analysis:

Scheme Abxcbdxc xxxeAxde Axxfxxxf
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 650
Words 118
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8

Robert Graves

Robert von Ranke Graves was an English poet, scholar/translator/writer of antiquity specializing in Classical Greece and Rome, novelist and soldier in World War One. more…

All Robert Graves poems | Robert Graves Books

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