Famous Great Love Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Great Love poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous great love poems. These examples illustrate what a famous great love poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...tank,
Castalia’s burn, an’ a’ that;
But there it streams an’ richly reams,
My Helicon I ca’ that.
For a’ that, &c.
Great love Idbear to a’ the fair,
Their humble slave an’ a’ that;
But lordly will, I hold it still
A mortal sin to thraw that.
For a’ that, &c.
In raptures sweet, this hour we meet,
Wi’ mutual love an’ a’ that;
But for how lang the flie may stang,
Let inclination law that.
For a’ that, &c.
Their tricks an’ craft hae put me daft,
They’ve taen me in...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...a’ that, an’ a’ that,
And twice as meikle’s a’ that;
The bonie lass that I loe best
She’ll be my ain for a’ that.
Great love I bear to a’ the fair,
Their humble slave, an’ a’ that;
But lordly will, I hold it still
A mortal sin to thraw that.
For a’ that, &c.
But there is ane aboon the lave,
Has wit, and sense, an’ a’ that;
A bonie lass, I like her best,
And wha a crime dare ca’ that?
For a’ that, &c.
In rapture sweet this hour we meet,
Wi’ mutual love an’ a’ ...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...ght!
God's sun lit noontide and his moon midnight,
While above all, true centre of our world,
True source of light, our great love passion-pearled
Gave all its life and splendour to the sea
Above whose tides stood our stability.
Then sudden and fierce, no monitory moan,
Smote the mad mischief of the great cyclone.
How far below us all its fury rolled!
How vainly sulphur tries to tarnish gold!
We lived together: all its malice meant
Nothing but freedom of a continent!
It was...Read more of this...
by
Crowley, Aleister
...Wanting to know all
I overlooked each particle
Containing the whole
Unknowable.
Intent on one great love, perfect,
Requited and for ever,
I missed love's everywhere
Small presence, thousand-guised.
And lifelong have been reading
Book after book, searching
For wisdom, but bringing
Only my own understanding.
Forgive me, forgiver,
Whether you be infinite omniscient
Or some unnoticed other
My existence has hurt.
Being what I am
What could I do but wro...Read more of this...
by
Raine, Kathleen
...in
To this white bone;
What love did then, love does now:
Gnaws me through.'
'What love,' asked Father Shawn, 'but too great love
Of flawed earth-flesh could cause this sorry pass?
Some damned condition you are in:
Thinking never to have left the world, you grieve
As though alive, shriveling in torment thus
To atone as shade for sin that lured blind man.'
'The day of doom
Is not yest come.
Until that time
A crock of dust is my dear hom.'
'Fond phantom,' cried shocked Fathe...Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...sworn to
fight her lord,
and wed her after. Should he be overborne, she will die
adoring him, forlorn,
shriven by her great love.
Above, the coronet winks in the darkness. Drip
-- hiss -- fall the raindrops.
The arras blows out from the wall, and a door bangs in a far-off
hall.
The candles swale. In the gale the moat below plunges
and spatters.
Will the lady lose courage and not come?
The rain claps on a loosened rafter.
Is that laughter?
The room is filled with lisps ...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...thing I keep from you.
There is a subtle part of me, which went
Into my long pursued and worshipped art;
Though your great love fills me with such content,
No other love finds room now in my heart.
Yet that rare essence was my art’s alone.
Thank God, you cannot grasp it; ‘tis mine own.
Thank God, I say, for while I love you so,
With that vast love, as passionate as tender,
I feel an exultation as I know
I have not made you a complete surrender.
Here is my body; bruise ...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...ter
Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.
XXVIII.
There was Lorenzo slain and buried in,
There in that forest did his great love cease;
Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win,
It aches in loneliness--is ill at peace
As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin:
They dipp'd their swords in the water, and did tease
Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur,
Each richer by his being a murderer.
XXIX.
They told their sister how, with sudden speed,
Lorenzo had ta'en ship fo...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...tried beauty now distrusts,
Fears lest he scorn a woman once assayed,
And now first wished she e'er had been a maid.
Great Love, how dost thou triumph and how reign,
That to a groom couldst humble her disdain!
Stripped to her skin, see how she stooping stands,
Nor scorns to rub him down with those fair hands,
And washing (lest the scent her crime disclose)
His sweaty hooves, tickles him 'twixt the toes.
But envious Fame, too soon, began to note
More gold in's Fob, m...Read more of this...
by
Marvell, Andrew
...the wound festers within.
Thus hath this cruel lady used a true
Servant and subject to herself and you ;
Nor know I, great Love, if my life be lent
To show thy mercy or my punishment :
Since by the only magic of thy art
A lover still may live that wants his heart.
If this indictment fright her, so as she
Seem willing to return my heart to me,
But cannot find it (for perhaps it may,
'Mongst other trifling hearts, be out o' th' way);
If she repent and would make me a...Read more of this...
by
Carew, Thomas
...so low they are comfortable --
The humpback in his small, washed cottage
Under the spokes of the clematis.
Is there no great love, only tenderness?
Does the sea
Remember the walker upon it?
Meaning leaks from the molecules.
The chimneys of the city breathe, the window sweats,
The children leap in their cots.
The sun blooms, it is a geranium.
The heart has not stopped....Read more of this...
by
Plath, Sylvia
...Once a great love cut my life in two.
The first part goes on twisting
at some other place like a snake cut in two.
The passing years have calmed me
and brought healing to my heart and rest to my eyes.
And I'm like someone standing in the Judean desert, looking at a sign:
"Sea Level"
He cannot see the sea, but he knows.
Thus I remember your face everywhere
at you...Read more of this...
by
Amichai, Yehuda
...ried of every right, unanswered prayer,
For man is weak; God sleeps: and heaven is high:
One fiery-coloured moment: one great love; and lo! we die.
Ah! but no ferry-man with labouring pole
Nears his black shallop to the flowerless strand,
No little coin of bronze can bring the soul
Over Death's river to the sunless land,
Victim and wine and vow are all in vain,
The tomb is sealed; the soldiers watch; the dead rise not again.
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...hair upon his thoughtful brow
Came smoothly clipped, and sleek,
But ran into a curl somehow
Beside his merrier cheek.
Great love to him his uncle too
The noble Gamelyn bare,
And often said, as his mother knew,
That he should be his heir.
Gamelyn's eyes, now getting dim,
Would twinkle at his sight,
And his ruddy wrinkles laugh at him
Between his locks so white:
For Robin already let him see
He should beat his playmates all
At wrestling, running, and archery,
Yet he cared n...Read more of this...
by
Hunt, James Henry Leigh
...crape,
Because few buildings crape decoration did escape.
First in the procession was the Emperor's bodyguard,
And his great love for them nothing could it retard;
Then followed a squadron of the hussars with their band,
Playing "Jesus, Thou my Comfort," most solemn and grand.
And to see the procession passing the sightseers tried their best,
Especially when the cavalry hove in sight, riding four abreast;
Men and officers with their swords drawn, a magnificent sight to see
I...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...s and hides his head;
Ev'n so thy brutal valour is displayed,
Breaks every stew, does each small whore invade,
But when great Love the onset does command,
Base recreant to thy prince, thou dar'st not stand.
Worst part of me, and henceforth hated most,
Through all the town a common fucking-post,
On whom each whore relieves her tingling ****
As hogs do rub themselves on gates and grunt,
May'st thou to ravenous chancres be a prey,
Or in consuming weepings waste away;
May strangu...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
...ence of the diabolical,—
If, robbed of two fond old enormities,
Our being had no onward auguries,
What then were this great love of ours to say
For launching other lives to voyage again
A little farther into time and pain,
A little faster in a futile chase
For a kingdom and a power and a Race
That would have still in sight
A manifest end of ashes and eternal night?
Is this the music of the toys we shake
So loud,—as if there might be no mistake
Somewhere in our indom...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...gone,
For rare wild storms: I hope we'll have them too;
I want to see you work that talisman
You boast about: I've a great love for spells.
Thomas
Let it be storm or calm, so we be sailing.
I long have wished to voyage into mid sea,
To give my senses rest from wondering
On this preplexèd grammar of the land
Written in men and women, the strange trees,
Herbs, and those things so like to souls, the beasts.
My wilful senses will keep perilously
Employed with these m...Read more of this...
by
Abercrombie, Lascelles
...spheres might roll,Wherever born, immutable and whole,In life, in death, my great love had been yours.""Enough," she smiled, "its fame for aye endures,And all my own! but pleasure has such power,Too little have we reck'd the growing hour;Behold! Aurora, from her golden bed,Brings back the day to mortals, and the sunRead more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...To this moment a rebel I throw down my arms,
Great Love, at first sight of Olinda's bright charms.
Make proud and secure by such forces as these,
You may now play the tyrant as soon as you please.
When Innocence, Beauty, and Wit do conspire
To betray, and engage, and inflame my Desire,
Why should I decline what I cannot avoid?
And let pleasing Hope by base Fear be destroyed?
Her innocence cannot cont...Read more of this...
by
Wilmot, John
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