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John Dryden
John Dryden
Born on August 9, 1631, John Dryden was the leading poet and literary critic of his day and he served as the first official Poet Laureate of England...
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FURTHER READING
Poems about Divorce
Coda
by Marilyn Hacker
Ebb
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Failing and Flying
by Jack Gilbert
Family Reunion
by Jeredith Merrin
Good Night
by Wilhelm Müller
Hey Allen Ginsberg Where Have You Gone and What Would You Think of My Drugs?
by Rachel Zucker
In Praise of Their Divorce
by Tony Hoagland
Ring
by Melissa Stein
The World as Seen Through a Glass of Ice Water
by Dobby Gibson
Related Prose
Poems for Breakups and Divorce
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Why should a foolish marriage vow

 
by John Dryden

Why should a foolish marriage vow, 
  Which long ago was made,
Oblige us to each other now
  When passion is decay'd?
We loved, and we loved, as long as we could,
  Till our love was loved 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.				

				

				
				



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