Forms: Epithalamium

Epithalamium: specifically refers to a form of poem that is written for the bride. Or, specifically, written for the bride on the way to her marital chamber.

It was originally among the Greeks a song in praise of bride and bridegroom, sung by a number of boys and girls at the door of the nuptial chamber. According to the scholiast on Theocritus, one form was employed at night, and another, to arouse the bride and bridegroom on the following morning. In either case, as was natural, the main burden of the song consisted of invocations of blessing and predictions of happiness.

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

113. Epithalamium

By John Gardiner Calkins Brainard

I SAW two clouds at morning, Tinged with the rising sun, And in the dawn they floated on, And mingled into one: I thought that morning cloud was blest, It moved so sweetly to the west. I saw two summer currents Flow smoothly to their meeting, And join their course, with silent force, In peace each other greeting: Calm was their course through banks of green, While dimpling eddies played between. Such be your gentle motion, Till life’s last pulse shall beat; Like summer’s beam, and summer’s stream, Float on, in joy, to meet A calmer sea, where storms shall cease— A purer sky, where all is peace.