Famous Lovers Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Lovers Litany

by Rudyard Kipling
 Eyes of grey -- a sodden quay,
Driving rain and falling tears,
As the steamer wears to sea
In a parting storm of cheers.
 Sing, for Faith and Hope are high --
 None so true as you and I --
 Sing the Lovers' Litany:
 "Love like ours can never die!"

Eyes of black -- a throbbing keel,
Milky foam to left and right;
Whispered converse...Read more of this...

Middle Aged Lovers II

by Erica Jong
 You open to me
a little,
then grow afraid
and close again,
a small boy
fearing to be hurt,
a toe stubbed
in the dark,
a finger cut
on paper.

I think I am free
of fears,
enraptured, abandoned
to the call
of the Bacchae,
my own siren,
tied to my own
mast,
both Circe
and her swine.

But I too
am afraid:
I know where
life leads.

The impulse
to join,
to confess all,
is followed
by the impulse
to renounce,

and love--
imperishable love--
must die,
in order
to be reborn.

We...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts XLVII: The Road Is

by Rabindranath Tagore
 The road is my wedded companion. She speaks to me under my feet all
day, she sings to my dreams all night.
My meeting with her had no beginning, it begins endlessly at
each daybreak, renewing its summer in fresh flowers and songs, and
her every new kiss is the first kiss to me.
The road and I are lovers. I change my dress...Read more of this...

A Lovers Quarrel

by Robert Browning
 I.

Oh, what a dawn of day!
How the March sun feels like May!
All is blue again
After last night's rain,
And the South dries the hawthorn-spray.
Only, my Love's away!
I'd as lief that the blue were grey,

II.

Runnels, which rillets swell,
Must be dancing down the dell,
With a foaming head
On the beryl bed
Paven smooth as a hermit's cell;
Each with a tale to tell,
Could my Love...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts II: Come to My Garden Walk

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Come to my garden walk, my love. Pass by the fervid flowers that
press themselves on your sight. Pass them by, stopping at some
chance joy, which like a sudden wonder of sunset illumines, yet
elude.
For lover's gift is shy, it never tells its name, it flits
across the shade, spreading a shiver of joy along the dust.
Overtake it or miss it for...Read more of this...

A Lovers Call XXVII

by Kahlil Gibran
 Where are you, my beloved? Are you in that little 
Paradise, watering the flowers who look upon you 
As infants look upon the breast of their mothers? 


Or are you in your chamber where the shrine of 
Virtue has been placed in your honor, and upon 
Which you offer my heart and soul as sacrifice? 


Or amongst the books,...Read more of this...

To Lovers

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Ho, ye lovers, list to me;
 Warning words have I for thee:
 Give ye heed, hefore ye wed,
 To this thing Sir Chaucer said:

“Love wol not be constrained by maistrie,
When maistrie cometh, the god of love anon
Beteth his winges, and farewel, he is gon.”

 Other poets knew as well,
 And the same sad story tell,
 Hark ye, heed ye,...Read more of this...

The Lover's Wish

by Victor Hugo
 ("Si j'étais la feuille.") 
 
 {XXII., September, 1828.} 


 Oh! were I the leaf that the wind of the West, 
 His course through the forest uncaring; 
 To sleep on the gale or the wave's placid breast 
 In a pendulous cradle is bearing. 
 
 All fresh with the morn's balmy kiss would I haste, 
...Read more of this...

The Doubters And The Lovers

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE DOUBTERS.

YE love, and sonnets write! Fate's strange behest!

The heart, its hidden meaning to declare,

Must seek for rhymes, uniting pair with pair:
Learn, children, that the will is weak, at best.

Scarcely with freedom the o'erflowing breast

As yet can speak, and well may it beware;

Tempestuous passions sweep each chord that's there,
Then once more sink to night and gentle rest.

Why vex yourselves...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts XVI: She Dwelt Here by the Pool

by Rabindranath Tagore
 She dwelt here by the pool with its landing-stairs in ruins. Many
an evening she had watched the moon made dizzy by the shaking of
bamboo leaves, and on many a rainy day the smell of the wet earth
had come to her over the young shoots of rice.
Her pet name is known here among those date-palm groves and
in the courtyards where...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts XXVIII: I Dreamt

by Rabindranath Tagore
 I dreamt that she sat by my head, tenderly ruffling my hair with
her fingers, playing the melody of her touch. I looked at her face
and struggled with my tears, till the agony of unspoken words burst
my sleep like a bubble.
I sat up and saw the glow of the Milky Way above my window,
like a world of silence on fire,...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts LVIII: Things Throng and Laugh

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Things throng and laugh loud in the sky; the sands and dust dance
and whirl like children. Man's mind is aroused by their shouts; his
thoughts long to be the playmates of things.
Our dreams, drifting in the stream of the vague, stretch their
arms to clutch the earth, -their efforts stiffen into bricks and
stones, and thus the city of man is built.
Voices...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts XLIII: Dying You Have Left Behind

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Dying, you have left behind you the great sadness of the Eternal
in my life. You have painted my thought's horizon with the sunset
colours of your departure, leaving a track of tears across the
earth to love's heaven. Clasped in your dear arms, life and death
united in me in a marriage bond.
I think I can see you watching there in the...Read more of this...

Lovers on Aran

by Seamus Heaney
 The timeless waves, bright, sifting, broken glass,
Came dazzling around, into the rocks,
Came glinting, sifting from the Americas

To posess Aran. Or did Aran rush
to throw wide arms of rock around a tide
That yielded with an ebb, with a soft crash?

Did sea define the land or land the sea?
Each drew new meaning from the waves' collision.
Sea broke on land to full...Read more of this...

The Lovers of the Poor

by Gwendolyn Brooks
 arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies' Betterment
League
Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,
The pink paint on the innocence of fear;
Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall. 
Cutting with knives served by their softest care,
Served by their...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts V: I Would Ask For Still More

by Rabindranath Tagore
 I would ask for still more, if I had the sky with all its stars,
and the world with its endless riches; but I would be content with
the smallest corner of this earth if only she were mine....Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts XIX: It Is Written in the Book

by Rabindranath Tagore
 It is written in the book that Man, when fifty, must leave the
noisy world, to go to the forest seclusion. But the poet proclaims
that the forest hermitage is only for the young. For it is the
birthplace of flowers and the haunt of birds and bees; and hidden
hooks are waiting there for the thrill of lovers' whispers. There
the moon-light, that...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts XVIII: Your Days

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Your days will be full of cares, if you must give me your heart.
My house by the cross-roads has its doors open and my mind is
absent, -for I sing.
I shall never be made to answer for it, if you must give me
your heart. If I pledge my word to you in tunes now, and am too
much in earnest to...Read more of this...

The House Of Dust: Part 02: 07: Two Lovers: Overtones

by Conrad Aiken
 Two lovers, here at the corner, by the steeple,
Two lovers blow together like music blowing:
And the crowd dissolves about them like a sea.
Recurring waves of sound break vaguely about them,
They drift from wall to wall, from tree to tree.
'Well, am I late?' Upward they look and laugh,
They look at the great clock's golden hands,
They laugh and talk, not knowing...Read more of this...

A Lovers Envy

by Henry Van Dyke
 I envy every flower that blows 
Along the meadow where she goes, 
And every bird that sings to her, 
And every breeze that brings to her
The fragrance of the rose. 

I envy every poet's rhyme
That moves her heart at eventime,
And every tree that wears for her
Its brightest bloom, and bears for her
The fruitage of its prime. 

I envy every...Read more of this...

The Lovers

by Rainer Maria Rilke
 See how in their veins all becomes spirit;
into each other they mature and grow.
Like axles, their forms tremblingly orbit,
round which it whirls, bewitching and aglow.
Thirsters, and they receive drink,
watchers, and see: they receive sight.
Let them into one another sink
so as to endure each other outright....Read more of this...

Let lovers all distraught and frenzied be,

by Omar Khayyam
Let lovers all distraught and frenzied be,
And flown with wine, and reprobates, like me;
When sober, I find everything amiss,
But in my cups cry, «Let what will be, be.»...Read more of this...

Lover's Song

by Victor Hugo
 ("Mon âme à ton coeur s'est donnée.") 
 
 {ANGELO, Act II., May, 1835.} 


 My soul unto thy heart is given, 
 In mystic fold do they entwine, 
 So bound in one that, were they riven, 
 Apart my soul would life resign. 
 Thou art my song and I the lyre; 
 Thou art the breeze...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts VIII: There Is Room for You

by Rabindranath Tagore
 There is room for you. You are alone with your few sheaves of rice.
My boat is crowded, it is heavily laden, but how can I turn you
away? Your young body is slim and swaying; there is a twinkling
smile in the edge of your eyes, and your robe is coloured like the
rain cloud.
The travellers will land for different roads and...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts IV: She Is Near to My Heart

by Rabindranath Tagore
 She is near to my heart as the meadow-flower to the earth; she is
sweet to me as sleep is to tired limbs. My love for her is my life
flowing in its fullness, like a river in autumn flood, running with
serene abandonment. My songs are one with my love, like the murmur
of a stream, that sings with all its waves...Read more of this...

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