{
 "id": "mina-loy/the-effectual-marriage",
 "title": "The Effectual Marriage",
 "poet": "Mina Loy",
 "poet_slug": "mina-loy",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "Others: An Anthology of the New Verse (1917)",
  "note": null,
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mina-loy",
   "https://mina-loy.com/timelines/chronology-loy/"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/mina-loy_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uva.x002129491?urlappend=%3Bseq=396",
   "https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17374476",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_others-a-magazine-of-the-new-verse_1916-07_3_1/page/27",
   "https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17390662",
   "https://archive.org/details/othersanantholo01kreygoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924022030351",
   "https://archive.org/details/littlereview07mcke/page/n199",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_others-a-magazine-of-the-new-verse_1917-04_3_6",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_dial_1921-06_70/page/672",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_dial_1921-08_71/page/n15",
   "https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106010168349",
   "https://archive.org/details/contact-collection-of-contemporary-writers/page/137",
   "https://personal.colby.edu/~isadoff/map/loy.doc",
   "https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/digital_objects/211477",
   "https://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/transatlantic/1/"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 123,
  "n_stanzas": 15,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 9
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The door was an absurd thing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet it was passable",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They quotidienly passed through it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was this shape",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Gina and Miovanni who they were God knows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They knew it was important to them",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This being of who they were",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They were themselves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Corporeally transcendentally consecutively",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "conjunctively and they were quite complete",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In the evening they looked out of their two windows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Miovanni out of his library window",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gina from the kitchen window",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From among his pots and pans",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where he so kindly kept her",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where she so wisely busied herself",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pots and Pans she cooked in them",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All sorts of sialagogues",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some say that happy women are immaterial",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So here we might dispense with her",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gina being a female",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But she was more than that",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Being an incipience a correlative",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "an instigation of the reaction of man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the palpable to the transcendent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mollescent irritant of his fantasy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gina had her use Being useful",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "contentedly conscious",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She flowered in Empyrean",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From which no well-mated woman ever returns",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sundays a warm light in the parlor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the gritty road on the white wall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "anybody could see it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shimmered a composite effigy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Madonna crinolined a man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "hidden beneath her hoop",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ho for the blue and red of her",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The silent eyelids of her",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The shiny smile of her",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ding dong said the bell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Miovanni Gina called",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would it be fitting for you to tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "the time for supper",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pooh said Miovanni I am",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Outside time and space",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Patience said Gina is an attribute",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And she learned at any hour to offer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dish appropriately delectable",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What had Miovanni made of his ego",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In his library",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What had Gina wondered among the pots and pans",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One never asked the other",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So they the wise ones eat their suppers in peace",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Of what their peace consisted",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We cannot say",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only that he was magnificently man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She insignificantly a woman who understood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Understanding what is that",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To Each his entity to others",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "their idiosyncrasies to the free expansion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "to the annexed their liberty",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To man his work",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To woman her love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Succulent meals and an occasional caress",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So be it",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "It so seldom is",
    "indent": 8
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "While Miovanni thought alone in the dark",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gina supposed that peeping she might see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A round light shining where his mind was",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She never opened the door",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fearing that this might blind her",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or even",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That she should see Nothing at all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So while he thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She hung out of the window",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Watching for falling stars",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when a star fell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She wished that still",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Miovanni would love her to-morrow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as Miovanni",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never gave any heed to the matter",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He did",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Gina was a woman",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who wanted everything",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be everything in woman",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Everything everyway at once",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Diurnally variegate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Miovanni always knew her",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She was Gina",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gina who lent monogamy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With her fluctuant aspirations",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A changeant consistency",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unexpected intangibilities",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Miovanni remained",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Monumentally the same",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The same Miovanni",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If he had become anything else",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gina’s world would have been at an end",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gina with no axis to revolve on",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must have dwindled to a full stop",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In the mornings she dropped",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cool crystals",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through devotional fingers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Saccharine for his cup",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And marketed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a Basket",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Trimmed with a red flannel flower",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When she was lazy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She wrote a poem on the milk bill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The first strophe Good morning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The second Good night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Something not too difficult to",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Learn by heart",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The scrubbed smell of the white-wood table",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Greasy cleanliness of the chopper board",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The coloured vegetables",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Intuited quality of flour",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crickly sparks of straw-fanned charcoal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ranged themselves among her audacious happinesses",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pet simplicities of her Universe",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where circles were only round",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Having no vices.",
    "indent": 9
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Forte dei Marmi",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}