All poems occur as DIV0. Sonnets are
attributed as "type=sonnets"; the rest are "type=poem". All quotation
marks, hyphens, dashes, apostrophes and colons have been transcribed as entity references. All <lg> (line groups) are attributed as cantos, stanzas, couplets, verse paragraphs, etc. All poems with regularly indented lines use the attribute "rend" in the <l> tag, with the value "indent1" for one tab stop, "indent2" for two tab stops, etc. All split lines are attributed as "type=i" for the initial portion, and "type=f" for the final portion.
All apostrophes and single right quotation marks are encoded as
’.
Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed; all hyphens are encoded as ‐ and em dashes as —.
(illustration)
BY
Swept into limbo is the host
Of heavenly angels, row on row;
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Pale and defeated, rise and go.
The great Jehovah is laid low,
Vanished his burning bush and rod--
Say, are we doomed to deeper woe?
Shall marriage go the way of God?
Monogamous, still at our post,
Reluctantly we undergo
Domestic round of boiled and roast,
Yet deem the whole proceeding slow.
Daily the secret murmurs grow;
We are no more content to plod
Along the beaten paths--and so
Marriage must go the way of God.
Soon, before all men, each shall toast
The seven strings unto his bow,
Like beacon fires along the coast,
The flame of love shall glance and glow.
Nor let nor hindrance man shall know,
From natal bath to funeral sod;
Perennial shall his pleasures flow
When marriage goes the way of God.
Grant, in a million years at most,
Folk shall be neither pairs nor odd--
Alas! we sha'n't be there to boast
"Marriage has gone the way of God!"
AMY LEVY.