title: Epithalamium (marriage of sister Helen to Jonas Platt)
author: Henry Livingston Jr.
date: 1790
source: Henry Livingston's manuscript poetry book (Thomas Collection; scans and transcription on henrylivingston.com) (with a 16-line bird prelude, "Robins! stop your whistling throats"); the Epithalamium proper printed anonymously in New-York Magazine; or, Literary Repository, vol. II, Feb 1791, p. 113. URL: https://www.henrylivingston.com/writing/poetry/marriage.htm (fetched via https://web.archive.org/web/20250522013615/https://www.henrylivingston.com/writing/poetry/marriage.htm)
form: mixed (trochaic tetrameter prelude; anapestic tetrameter epithalamium)
lines: 30
attribution: certain
notes: Light wedding verses for his sister Helen and Jonas Platt (married June 1790). MS version kept (names Helen and Jonas); the printed version substitutes "Strephon and Phillis" and "zephyrs" (confirmed independently in the archive.org OCR of the Feb 1791 issue). MS scan: https://www.henrylivingston.com/writing/poetry/doublepages/doublepage62-63.htm Sub-headings (not counted as verse lines): The Epithalamium

Robins! stop your whistling throats
Listen to my sweeter notes;
Cease to hop from spray to spray
While I trill the wedding lay.

Thrushes on the maples' top
For a moment pray-ye stop --

Twitt'ring swallows cease to twitter
Hearken to my ditty sweeter --

Lovesick turtles gently cooing
Leave your honey-suckle wooing --

Little wrens I humbly beg
Take your music down a peg --

Whipperwills sweet bird of gloom,
Stop your loud nocturnal tune;
And ye hooting lovely owls
Listen to my lovelier howls.

The Epithalamium

'Twas summer when softly the breezes were blowing
And Hudson majestic so sweetly was flowing
The groves rang with music & accents of pleasure
And nature in rapture beat time to the measure

When Helen and Jonas so true and so loving
Along the green lawn were seen arm in arm moving
Sweet daffodils, violets and roses spontaneous
Wherever they wandered sprang up instantaneous.

The ascent the lovers at length were seen climbing
Whose summit is grac'd by the temple of Hymen:
The genius presiding no sooner perceived them
But spreading his pinions he flew to receive them:
With kindest of greetings pronounced them wellcome
While hollidays clangor rang loud to the welkin.