Famous Love And Hope Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Love And Hope poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous love and hope poems. These examples illustrate what a famous love and hope poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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The Song of the Shirt

by Thomas Hood
 With fingers weary and worn, 
With eyelids heavy and red, 
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, 
Plying her needle and thread-- 
Stitch! stitch! stitch! 
In poverty, hunger, and dirt, 
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch 
She sang the "Song of the Shirt."

"Work! work! work! 
While the cock is crowing aloof! 
And work — work — work, 
Till...Read more of this...

To The Chapel Bell

by Robert Southey
 "Lo I, the man who erst the Muse did ask
Her deepest notes to swell the Patriot's meeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter task
For cap and gown to leave my minstrel weeds,"
For yon dull noise that tinkles on the air
Bids me lay by the lyre and go to morning prayer.

Oh how I hate the sound! it is the Knell,
That still...Read more of this...

In a Minor Key

by Amy Levy
 (AN ECHO FROM A LARGER LYRE.)


That was love that I had before
Years ago, when my heart was young;
Ev'ry smile was a gem you wore;
Ev'ry word was a sweet song sung.

You came--all my pulses burn'd and beat.
(O sweet wild throbs of an early day!)
You went--with the last dear sound of your feet
The light wax'd dim and the place grew grey.

And...Read more of this...

Loves Vicissitudes

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 AS Love and Hope together
Walk by me for a while,
Link-armed the ways they travel
For many a pleasant mile -
Link-armed and dumb they travel,
They sing not, but they smile.

Hope leaving, Love commences
To practise on the lute;
And as he sings and travels
With lingering, laggard foot,
Despair plays obligato
The sentimental flute.

Until in singing garments
Comes royally, at call -
Comes limber-hipped Indiff'rence
Free stepping, straight and...Read more of this...

Love Without Hope

by Robert Graves
 Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher
Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter,
So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly
Singing about her head, as she rode by....Read more of this...

After-Thought

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away. -Vain sympathies!
For backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall not cease to glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLVII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLVII. Una candida cerva sopra l' erba. THE VISION OF THE FAWN.  Beneath a laurel, two fair streams between,At early sunrise of the opening year,A milk-white fawn upon the meadow green,Of gold its either horn, I saw appear;[Pg 173]So mild, yet so majestic, was its mien,I...Read more of this...

Ballata I

by Francesco Petrarch
BALLATA I. Amor, quando fioria. HIS GRIEF AT SURVIVING HER IS MITIGATED BY THE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT SHE NOW KNOWS HIS HEART.  Yes, Love, at that propitious timeWhen hope was in its bloomy prime,And when I vainly fancied nighThe meed of all my constancy;Then sudden she, of whom I soughtCompassion, from...Read more of this...

First Love

by Victor Hugo
 ("Vous êtes singulier.") 
 
 {MARION DELORME, Act I., June, 1829, played 1831.} 
 
 MARION (smiling.) You're strange, and yet I love you thus. 
 
 DIDIER. You love me? 
 Beware, nor with light lips utter that word. 
 You love me!—know you what it is to love 
 With love that is the life-blood in one's...Read more of this...

From An Album Of 1604

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 HOPE provides wings to thought, and love to hope.
Rise up to Cynthia, love, when night is clearest,
And say, that as on high her figure changeth,
So, upon earth, my joy decays and grows.
And whisper in her ear with modest softness,
How doubt oft hung its head, and truth oft wept.
And oh ye thoughts, distrustfully inclined,
If ye are therefore by the loved...Read more of this...

Two Wishes XI

by Kahlil Gibran
 In the silence of the night Death descended from God toward the earth. He hovered above a city and pierced the dwellings with his eyes. He say the spirits floating on wings of dreams, and the people who were surrendered to the Slumber. 

When the moon fell below the horizon and the city became black, Death walked silently among...Read more of this...

Night

by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
'Tis eventide; the noisy brook is hushed
Or murmurs only as a tired child,
Worn out with play; the tangled weeds lie still
Within the marshy hollow. Quaint and dark
The willows bend above the brooklet's tide,
Reflecting shadowy images therein.
The dark-browed trees, with faces to the sky,
Shut out the light that fades in crimson lines
Along the western sky. And yonder shade
Of purple marks the...Read more of this...

To Sylvia

by Amy Levy
 "O love, lean thou thy cheek to mine,
And let the tears together flow"--
Such was the song you sang to me
Once, long ago.

Such was the song you sang; and yet
(O be not wroth!) I scarcely knew
What sounds flow'd forth; I only felt
That you were you.

I scarcely knew your hair was gold,
Nor of the heavens' own blue your eyes.
Sylvia and song,...Read more of this...

To Caroline

by George (Lord) Byron
 Think'st thou I saw thy beauteous eyes,
Suffus'd in tears, implore to stay;
And heard unmov'd thy plenteous sighs,
Which said far more than words can say?

Though keen the grief thy tears exprest,
When love and hope lay both o'erthrown;
Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast
Throbb'd, with deep sorrow, as thine own.

But, when our cheeks with anguish glow'd,
When thy sweet lips were join'd...Read more of this...

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