Famous Loved One Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Different Emotions On The Same Spot

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE MAIDEN.

I'VE seen him before me!
What rapture steals o'er me!

Oh heavenly sight!
He's coming to meet me;
Perplex'd, I retreat me,

With shame take to flight.
My mind seems to wander!
Ye rocks and trees yonder,

Conceal ye my rapture.

Conceal my delight!

THE YOUTH.

'Tis here I must find her,
'Twas here she enshrined her,

Here vanish'd from sight.
She came, as to meet me,
Then fearing to greet me,

With shame...Read more of this...

The Bride Of Corinth

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [First published in Schiller's Horen, in connection 
with a
friendly contest in the art of ballad-writing between the two
great poets, to which many of their finest works are owing.]

ONCE a stranger youth to Corinth came,

Who in Athens lived, but hoped that he
From a certain townsman there might claim,

As his father's friend, kind courtesy.

Son and daughter, they

Had been wont to say

Should...Read more of this...

The Maiden Speaks

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 How grave thou loookest, loved one! wherefore so?

Thy marble image seems a type of thee;

Like it, no sign of life thou giv'st to me;
Compared with thee, the stone appears to glow.

Behind his shield in ambush lurks the foe,

The friend's brow all-unruffled we should see.

I seek thee, but thou seek'st away to flee;
Fix'd as this sculptured figure, learn to grow!

Tell...Read more of this...

Living Remembrance

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 HALF vex'd, half pleased, thy love will feel,
Shouldst thou her knot or ribbon steal;
To thee they're much--I won't conceal;

Such self-deceit may pardon'd be;
A veil, a kerchief, garter, rings,
In truth are no mean trifling things,

But still they're not enough for me.

She who is dearest to my heart,
Gave me, with well dissembled smart,
Of her own life, a living part,

No charm in...Read more of this...

The Destruction Of Magdeburg

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [For a fine account of the fearful sack of Magdeburg, 
by Tilly, in the year 1613, see SCHILLER's History of the Thirty 
Years' War.]

OH, Magdeberg the town!
Fair maids thy beauty crown,
Thy charms fair maids and matrons crown;
Oh, Magdeburg the town!

Where all so blooming stands,
Advance fierce Tilly's bands;
O'er gardens and o'er well--till'd lands
Advance fierce Tilly's bands.

Now Tilly's at the gate.
Our...Read more of this...

Heart

by Ehsan Sehgal
"Heart is occupied only by love, the loved one, when it happens, there is no more fear of resistance of anyone else."
Ehsan Sehgal...Read more of this...

The Maid Of The Mills Repentance

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 YOUTH.

AWAY, thou swarthy witch! Go forth

From out my house, I tell thee!
Or else I needs must, in my wrath,

Expel thee!
What's this thou singest so falsely, forsooth,
Of love and a maiden's silent truth?

Who'll trust to such a story!

GIPSY.

I sing of a maid's repentant fears,

And long and bitter yearning;
Her levity's changed to truth and tears

All-burning.
She dreads no more the threats of...Read more of this...

Night Ray

by Paul Celan
 Most brightly of all burned the hair of my evening loved one:
to her I send the coffin of lightest wood.
Waves billow round it as round the bed of our dream in Rome;
it wears a white wig as I do and speaks hoarsely:
it talks as I do when I grant admittance to hearts.
It knows a French song about love, I...Read more of this...

To The Distant One

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 AND have I lost thee evermore?

Hast thou, oh fair one, from me flown?
Still in mine ear sounds, as of yore,

Thine ev'ry word, thine ev'ry tone.

As when at morn the wand'rer's eye

Attempts to pierce the air in vain,
When, hidden in the azure sky,

The lark high o'er him chaunts his strain:

So do I cast my troubled gaze

Through bush, through forest, o'er...Read more of this...

Morning

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 You know how it is waking
from a dream certain you can fly
and that someone, long gone, returned

and you are filled with longing,
for a brief moment, to drive off
the road and feel nothing

or to see the loved one and feel
everything. Perhaps one morning,
taking brush to hair you'll wonder

how much of your life you've spent
at this task or signing your name
or...Read more of this...

Hard Luck

by Edgar Albert Guest
 Ain't no use as I can see
In sittin' underneath a tree 
An' growlin' that your luck is bad,
An' that your life is extry sad;
Your life ain't sadder than your neighbor's
Nor any harder are your labors;
It rains on him the same as you,
An' he has work he hates to do;
An' he gits tired an' he gits cross,
An' he has trouble...Read more of this...

In The Firelight

by Eugene Field
 The fire upon the hearth is low,
And there is stillness everywhere,
While like winged spirits, here and there,
The firelight shadows fluttering go.
And as the shadows round me creep,
A childish treble breaks the gloom,
And softly from a further room
Comes, "Now I lay me down to sleep."

And somehow, with that little prayer
And that sweet treble in my ears,
My thoughts go back to...Read more of this...

The Chosen Cliff

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 HERE in silence the lover fondly mused on his loved one;

Gladly he spake to me thus: "Be thou my witness, thou stone!
Yet thou must not be vainglorious, thou hast many companions;

Unto each rock on the plain, where I, the happy one, dwell,
Unto each tree of the wood that I cling to, as onward I ramble,

'Be thou a sign of...Read more of this...

Lost

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 You left me with the autumn time; 
When the winter stripped the forest bare, 
Then dressed it in his spotless rime; 
When frosts were lurking in the air
You left me here and went away.
The winds were cold; you could not stay.

You sought a warmer clime, until
The south wind, artful maid, should break
The winter's trumpets, and should fill
The air with...Read more of this...

May Song

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 How fair doth Nature

Appear again!
How bright the sunbeams!

How smiles the plain!

The flow'rs are bursting

From ev'ry bough,
And thousand voices

Each bush yields now.

And joy and gladness

Fill ev'ry breast!
Oh earth!--oh sunlight!

Oh rapture blest!

Oh love! oh loved one!

As golden bright,
As clouds of morning

On yonder height!

Thou blessest gladly

The smiling field,--
The world in fragrant

Vapour conceal'd.

Oh maiden, maiden,

How love I thee!
Thine eye, how gleams it!

How lov'st...Read more of this...

Love-song

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
If Death should claim me for her own to-day,
And softly I should falter from your side,
Oh, tell me, loved one, would my memory stay,
And would my image in your heart abide?
Or should I be as some forgotten dream,
That lives its little space, then fades entire?
Should Time send o'er you its relentless stream,
To cool your heart, and quench for aye love's...Read more of this...

Yes holy be thy resting place

by Emily Brontë
 Yes, holy be thy resting place
Wherever thou may'st lie;
The sweetest winds breathe on thy face,
The softest of the sky. 

And will not guardian Angles send
Kind dreams and thoughts of love,
Though I no more may watchful bend
Thy longed repose above? 

And will not heaven itself bestow
A beam of glory there
That summer's grass more green may grow,
And summer's flowers more fair?...Read more of this...

To lovers true, what matters dark or fair?

by Omar Khayyam
To lovers true, what matters dark or fair?
Or if the loved one silk or sackcloth wear,
Or lie on down or dust, or rise to heaven?
Yea, though she sink to hell, he'll seek her there....Read more of this...

Hidden

by Constantine P Cavafy
 If you place a fern
under a stone
the next day it will be
nearly invisible
as if the stone has 
swallowed it.

If you tuck the name of a loved one
under your tongue too long
without speaking it
it becomes blood
sigh
the little sucked-in breath of air
hiding everywhere
beneath your words.

No one sees
the fuel that feeds you....Read more of this...

To The Rising Full Moon

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 Dornburg, 25th August, 1828.

WILT thou suddenly enshroud thee,

Who this moment wert so nigh?
Heavy rising masses cloud thee,

Thou art hidden from mine eye.

Yet my sadness thou well knowest,

Gleaming sweetly as a star!
That I'm loved, 'tis thou that showest,

Though my loved one may be far.

Upward mount then! clearer, milder,

Robed in splendour far more bright!
Though my heart with grief throbs wilder,

Fraught with...Read more of this...

Different Threats

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 I ONCE into a forest far

My maiden went to seek,
And fell upon her neck, when: "Ah!"

She threaten'd, "I will shriek!"

Then cried I haughtily: "I'll crush

The man that dares come near thee!"
"Hush!" whisper'd she: "My loved one, hush!

Or else they'll overhear thee!"

1767-9....Read more of this...

Lincoln

by John Gould Fletcher
 I 

Like a gaunt, scraggly pine 
Which lifts its head above the mournful sandhills; 
And patiently, through dull years of bitter silence, 
Untended and uncared for, starts to grow. 

Ungainly, labouring, huge, 
The wind of the north has twisted and gnarled its branches; 
Yet in the heat of midsummer days, when thunderclouds ring the horizon, 
A nation of men...Read more of this...

Dedication

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 Dedication 
These to His Memory--since he held them dear, 
Perchance as finding there unconsciously 
Some image of himself--I dedicate, 
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears-- 
These Idylls. 

And indeed He seems to me 
Scarce other than my king's ideal knight, 
`Who reverenced his conscience as his king; 
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong; 
Who spake no slander, no, nor...Read more of this...

The Swiss Alps

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 YESTERDAY brown was still thy head, as the locks 
of my loved one,

Whose sweet image so dear silently beckons afar.
Silver-grey is the early snow to-day on thy summit,

Through the tempestuous night streaming fast over 
thy brow.
Youth, alas, throughout life as closely to age is united

As, in some changeable dream, yesterday blends 
with to-day.

 Uri, 
October 7th, 1797....Read more of this...

Demeter And Persephone

by Alfred Lord Tennyson
 Faint as a climate-changing bird that flies
All night across the darkness, and at dawn
Falls on the threshold of her native land,
And can no more, thou camest, O my child,
Led upward by the God of ghosts and dreams,
Who laid thee at Eleusis, dazed and dumb,
With passing thro' at once from state to state,
Until I brought thee hither, that the day,
When...Read more of this...

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