Famous Loves Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Loves poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous loves poems. These examples illustrate what a famous loves poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Emily Dickinson
Love is done when Love's begun,
Sages say,
But have Sages known?
Truth adjourn your Boon
Without Day....Read more of this...
by
Dylan Thomas
From love's first fever to her plague, from the soft second
And to the hollow minute of the womb,
From the unfolding to the scissored caul,
The time for breast and the green apron age
When no mouth stirred about the hanging famine,
All world was one, one windy nothing,
My world was christened in a stream of milk.
And earth and sky were as one...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WHO will hear me? Whom shall I lament to?
Who would pity me that heard my sorrows?
Ah, the lip that erst so many raptures
Used to taste, and used to give responsive,
Now is cloven, and it pains me sorely;
And it is not thus severely wounded
By my mistress having caught me fiercely,
And then gently bitten me, intending
To secure her friend more firmly...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—
See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
This jug did once, like me, love's sorrows taste,
And bonds of beauty's tresses once embraced,
This handle, which you see upon its side,
Has many a time twined round a slender waist!...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
When the bees are humming in the honeysuckle vine
And the summer days are in their bloom,
Then my love is deepest, oh, dearest heart of mine,
When the bees are humming in the honeysuckle vine.
When the winds are moaning o'er the meadows chill and gray,
And the land is dim with winter gloom,
Then for thee, my darling, love will have its way,
When the...Read more of this...
by
Langston Hughes
I love to see the big white moon,
A-shining in the sky;
I love to see the little stars,
When the shadow clouds go by.
I love the rain drops falling
On my roof-top in the night;
I love the soft wind’s sighing,
Before the dawn’s gray light.
I love the deepness of the blue,
In my Lord’s heaven above;
But better than all these things I think,
I love my...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Love me. I care not what the circling years
To me may do.
If, but in spite of time and tears,
You prove but true.
Love me—albeit grief shall dim mine eyes,
And tears bedew,
I shall not e'en complain, for then my skies
Shall still be blue.
Love me, and though the winter snow shall pile,
And leave me chill,
Thy passion's warmth shall make for me, meanwhile,
A sun-kissed...Read more of this...
by
George Meredith
MARK where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like,
Its skeleton shadow on the broad-back'd wave!
Here is a fitting spot to dig Love's grave;
Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike,
And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand:
In hearing of the ocean, and in sight
Of those ribb'd wind-streaks running into white.
If I the death...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Because He loves Her
We will pry and see if she is fair
What difference is on her Face
From Features others wear.
It will not harm her magic pace
That we so far behind --
Her Distances propitiate
As Forests touch the Wind
Not hoping for his notice vast
But nearer to adore
'Tis Glory's far sufficiency
That makes our trying poor....Read more of this...
by
John Donne
Who ever loves, if he do not propose
The right true end of love, he's one that goes
To sea for nothing but to make him sick.
Love is a bear-whelp born: if we o'erlick
Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take,
We err, and of a lump a monster make.
Were not a calf a monster that were grown
Faced like a...Read more of this...
by
Coventry Patmore
I walk, I trust, with open eyes;
I've travelled half my worldly course;
And in the way behind me lies
Much vanity and some remorse;
I've lived to feel how pride may part
Spirits, tho' matched like hand and glove;
I've blushed for love's abode, the heart;
But have not disbelieved in love;
Nor unto love, sole mortal thing...Read more of this...
by
David Lehman
When she says Margarita she means Daiquiri.
When she says quixotic she means mercurial.
And when she says, "I'll never speak to you again,"
she means, "Put your arms around me from behind
as I stand disconsolate at the window."
He's supposed to know that.
When a man loves a woman he is in New York and she is in Virginia
or he is in Boston,...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
ABSENCE hear thou my protestation
Against thy strength
Distance and length:
Do what thou canst for alteration
For hearts of truest mettle 5
Absence doth join and Time doth settle.
Who loves a mistress of such quality
His mind hath found
Affection's ground
Beyond time place and all mortality. 10
To hearts that cannot vary
Absence is...Read more of this...
by
William Morris
Draw not away thy hands, my love,
With wind alone the branches move,
And though the leaves be scant above
The Autumn shall not shame us.
Say; Let the world wax cold and drear,
What is the worst of all the year
But life, and what can hurt us, dear,
Or death, and who shall blame us?
Ah, when the summer comes again
How shall we say, we...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
I scarce believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grass;
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make’ it more.
But if medicine, love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence,
But mixed of all stuffs...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
For that thy face is fair I love thee not;
Nor yet because the light of thy brown eyes
Hath gleams of wonder and of glad surprise,
Like woodland streams that cross a sunlit spot:
Nor for thy beauty, born without a blot,
Most perfect when it shines through no disguise
Pure as the star of Eve in Paradise, ---
For all these outward things I...Read more of this...
by
Mark Van Doren
That God should love me is more wonderful
Than that I so imperfectly love him.
My reason is mortality, and dim
Senses; his--oh, insupportable--
Is that he sees me. Even when I pull
Dark thoughts about my head, each vein and limb
Delights him, though remembrance in him, grim
With my worst crimes, should prove me horrible.
And he...Read more of this...
by
John Donne
I long to talk with some old lover's ghost,
Who died before the God of Love was born:
I cannot think that he, who then loved most,
Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.
But since this god produced a destiny,
And that vice-nature, Custom, lets it be,
I must love her that loves not me.
Sure, they which made him god meant...Read more of this...
by
Hafez
In love’s great ocean, whose calm-shelter’d shore
Must he for ever leave, whose soul is bound
On farthest quest, life’s wonders to explore—
That mightiest flood, all-whelming, torment-toss’d,
Wherein must ev’ry lover’s self be lost
Ere the Belovéd’s lovelier self be found—
Think not, O searcher, in that sea to find
Food for thine earth-born strength & lustful show,
Nor glorious pearl to deck thy worldly mind,
Nor isle...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
I think of thee, when golden sunbeams shimmer
Across the sea;
And when the waves reflect the moon's pale glimmer,
I think of thee.
I see thy form, when down the distant highway
The dust-clouds rise;
In deepest night, above the mountain by-way,
I see thine eyes.
I hear thee when the ocean-tides returning
Loudly rejoice;
And on the lonely moor, in stillness yearning,
I hear thy voice.
I dwell with...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
While in love's book I sought an augury;
An ardent youth cried out in ecstasy,
«Who owns a sweetheart beauteous as the moon,
Might wish his moments long as years to be!»...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Love hath the wings of the butterfly,
Oh, clasp him but gently,
Pausing and dipping and fluttering by
Inconsequently.
Stir not his poise with the breath of a sigh;
Love hath the wings of the butterfly.[Pg 118]
Love hath the wings of the eagle bold,
Cling to him strongly—
What if the look of the world be cold,
And life go wrongly?
Rest on his pinions, for broad...Read more of this...
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
How does Love speak?
In the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek,
And in the pallor that succeeds it; by
The quivering lid of an averted eye –
The smile that proves the parent to a sigh –
Thus doth Love speak.
How does Love speak?
By the uneven heart-throbs, and the freak
Of bounding pulses that stand still and ache,
While new emotions,...Read more of this...
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...
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