---
title: 'A Wedding Poem by Samuel Doak'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2019-05-30
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2019-a-wedding-poem-by-samuel-doak
---

# A Wedding Poem by Samuel Doak

It was on October 31, 1775 that [Samuel Doak](/authors/samuel-doak) married Esther Houston Montgomery. The diary of this pioneer Presbyterian minister and educator records a poem that he wrote on this special occasion. It can be found in William Gunn Calhoun, *Samuel Doak, 1748-1830: His Life, His Children, Washington College*, pp. 25-26 (available at our [Secondary Sources page](/tags/secondary-source)).

> The hour is come, we join our hands,
> And bind ourselves in wedlock bands,
> In presence of Almighty God to vows perpetual.
> There we read: — ‘Tis past.
> Then first of all we pray
> That God may bind our souls to-day
> In bonds of everlasting love;
> Commenced below; improved above.
> Then whilst our moments wing heavenward
> And bear us to heaven the final day
> O may each heart be true
> In honor of our Saviour God
> Nor accustom our unhallowed list
> Nor glittering stores of worldly dust
> Not all the tempting arts of man
> Could then our hearts cement in one.
> Great God, our witness, ‘Twas thou that joined
> Our hearts and hands, and formed our mind
> For social intercourse; then may
> Our souls as one here — join to pray.