And, since I must be mateless, I shall win One boon beyond the meed of common clay: My life shall end where other lives begin, And live when other lives have passed away.
"Pan and Aeolus: Poems"
Charles Hamilton Musgrove
Then the crow With full voice, good-for-naught, inviting rain, Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone.
"The Georgics"
Virgil
And often such a woman, finding herself childless, and stirred to her action by a voice that is Nature's, ordering her to fulfill her woman's destiny, makes choice from among those countless little ones who are unclaimed; and if she happens not to be married, nevertheless, like a mateless bird, she sets lovingly about the building of a home nest.
"Apron-Strings"
Eleanor Gates