I'd like to put in a puff for one of my favorite 19th c. masterpieces, George Meredith's poem-novella "Modern Love" (often called a sonnet sequence, although in fact all the poems are 16 lines long). The story chronicles the disintegration of a marriage that has once been passionately loving. If you haven't read this, I hope I can persuade you to give it a try. Here are 2 samples:
#1
By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:
That, at his hand's light quiver by her head,
The strange low sobs that shook their common bed
Were called into her with a sharp surprise,
And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,
Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay
Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away
With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes
Her giant heart of Memory and Tears
Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat
Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet
Were moveless, looking through their dead black years
By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.
Like sculpted effigies they might be seen
Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between:
Each wishing for the sword that severs all.
#17
At dinner, she is hostess, I am host.
Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps
The Topic over intellectual deeps
In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.
With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball:
It is in truth a most contagious game:
HIDING THE SKELETON shall be its name.
Such play as this the devils might appal!
But here's the greater wonder: in that we,
Enamored of an acting nought can tire,
Each other, like true hypocrites, admire;
Warm-lighted looks, Love's ephemerioe,
Shoot gayly o'er the dishes and the wine.
We waken envy of our happy lot.
Fair, sweet, and golden shows the marriage-knot.
Dear guests, you now have seen Love's corpse-light shine.
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