Famous New Love Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous New 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 new love poems. These examples illustrate what a famous new love poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Ode to a Nightingale

by John Keats
MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, 
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains 
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, 5 
But being too happy in thine happiness, 
That thou, light-wing¨¨d Dryad of the trees, 
In some melodious plot 
Of...Read more of this...

Affirmation

by Donald Hall
 To grow old is to lose everything. 
Aging, everybody knows it. 
Even when we are young, 
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads 
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer 
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters 
into debris on the shore, 
and a friend from school drops 
cold on...Read more of this...

The Widow

by Thomas Hardy
 By Mellstock Lodge and Avenue 
 Towards her door I went, 
And sunset on her window-panes 
 Reflected our intent. 

The creeper on the gable nigh 
 Was fired to more than red 
And when I came to halt thereby 
 "Bright as my joy!" I said. 

Of late days it had been her aim 
 To meet me...Read more of this...

A Wife In London

by Thomas Hardy
 December 1899

I 

She sits in the tawny vapour 
That the Thames-side lanes have uprolled, 
Behind whose webby fold-on-fold 
Like a waning taper 
The street-lamp glimmers cold.

A messenger's knock cracks smartly, 
Flashed news in her hand 
Of meaning it dazes to understand 
Though shaped so shortly: 
He--he has fallen--in the far South Land...

II

'Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker, 
The...Read more of this...

The Last Question

by Dorothy Parker
 New love, new love, where are you to lead me?
All along a narrow way that marks a crooked line.
How are you to slake me, and how are you to feed me?
With bitter yellow berries, and a sharp new wine.

New love, new love, shall I be forsaken?
One shall go a-wandering, and one of us must sigh.
Sweet it is to slumber,...Read more of this...

New Love New Life

by Amy Levy
 I.

She, who so long has lain
Stone-stiff with folded wings,
Within my heart again
The brown bird wakes and sings.

Brown nightingale, whose strain
Is heard by day, by night,
She sings of joy and pain,
Of sorrow and delight.


II.

'Tis true,--in other days
Have I unbarred the door;
He knows the walks and ways--
Love has been here before.

Love blest and love accurst
Was here in days long past;
This time...Read more of this...

Wait

by Galway Kinnell
 Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same:...Read more of this...

Canzone III

by Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE III. Standomi un giorno solo alla finestra. UNDER VARIOUS ALLEGORIES HE PAINTS THE VIRTUE, BEAUTY, AND UNTIMELY DEATH OF LAURA.  While at my window late I stood alone,So new and many things there cross'd my sight,To view them I had almost weary grown.A dappled hind appear'd upon the right,In aspect...Read more of this...

Sonnet 152: In loving thee thou knowst I am forsworn

by William Shakespeare
 In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing:
In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn
In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjured most,
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest...Read more of this...

To Mrs. M. A. at Parting

by Katherine Philips
 I Have examin'd and do find,
Of all that favour me
There's none I grieve to leave behind
But only only thee.
To part with thee I needs must die,
Could parting sep'rate thee and I.

But neither Chance nor Complement
Did element our Love ;
'Twas sacred Sympathy was lent
Us from the Quire above.
That Friendship Fortune did create,
Still fears a wound from Time or Fate.

Our chang'd...Read more of this...

The White Bees

by Henry Van Dyke
 I 

LEGEND 

Long ago Apollo called to Aristæus, 
youngest of the shepherds,
Saying, "I will make you keeper of my bees." 
Golden were the hives, and golden was the honey;
golden, too, the music,
Where the honey-makers hummed among the trees. 

Happy Aristæus loitered in the garden, wandered
in the orchard,
Careless and contented, indolent and free; 
Lightly took his labour, lightly took his...Read more of this...

Love is Enough

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Love is enough. Let us not ask for gold. 
Wealth breeds false aims, and pride and selfishness; 
In those serene, Arcadian days of old 
Men gave no thought to princely homes and dress. 
The gods who dwelt on fair Olympia's height 
Lived only for dear love and love's delight. 
Love is enough.

Love is enough. Why should we care for...Read more of this...

New And Old

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 I and new love, in all its living bloom, 
Sat vis-à-vis, while tender twilight hours
Went softly by us, treading as on flowers.
Then suddenly I saw within the room
The old love, long since lying in its tomb.
It dropped the cerecloth from its fleshless face
And smiled on me, with a remembered grace
That, like the noontide, lit the gloaming gloom.

Upon its shroud...Read more of this...

Sonnet CLII

by William Shakespeare
 In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing,
In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjured most;
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee
And all my honest...Read more of this...

Modern Love XL: I Bade My Lady Think

by George Meredith
 I bade my Lady think what she might mean. 
Know I my meaning, I? Can I love one, 
And yet be jealous of another? None 
Commits such folly. Terrible Love, I ween, 
Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave 
The lightless seas of selfishness amain: 
Seas that in a man's heart have no rain 
To fall and still...Read more of this...

New Love New Life

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [Written at the time of Goethe's connection 
with Lily.]

HEART! my heart! what means this feeling?

What oppresseth thee so sore?
What strange life is o'er me stealing!

I acknowledge thee no more.
Fled is all that gave thee gladness,
Fled the cause of all thy sadness,

Fled thy peace, thine industry--

Ah, why suffer it to be?

Say, do beauty's graces youthful,

Does this form so fair and...Read more of this...

484. Song—Saw you my dear my Philly

by Robert Burns
 O SAW ye my Dear, my Philly?
 O saw ye my Dear, my Philly,
She’s down i’ the grove, she’s wi’ a new Love,
 She winna come hame to her Willy.


 What says she my dear, my Philly?
 What says she my dear, my Philly?
She lets thee to wit she has thee forgot,
 And forever disowns thee, her Willy.


 O...Read more of this...

Old And New

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 Long have the poets vaunted, in their lays, 
Old times, old loves, old friendships, and old wine
Why should the old monopolise all praise? 
Then let the new claim mine.

Give me strong new friends, when the old prove weak, 
Or fail me in my darkest hour of need; 
Why perish with the ship that springs a leak, 
Or lean upon...Read more of this...

Confined Love

by John Donne
 Some man unworthy to be possessor
Of old or new love, himself being false or weak,
Thought his pain and shame would be lesser
If on womankind he might his anger wreak,
And thence a law did grow,
One might but one man know;
But are other creatures so?

Are Sun, Moon, or Stars by law forbidden
To smile where they list, or lend away their light?
Are...Read more of this...

Soldier Soldier

by Rudyard Kipling
 "Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
Why don't you march with my true love?"
"We're fresh from off the ship an' 'e's maybe give the slip,
An' you'd best go look for a new love."
New love! True love!
Best go look for a new love,
The dead they cannot rise, an' you'd better dry your eyes,
An' you'd best go look for a new love.

"Soldier,...Read more of this...

Anthony Considine

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 OUT in the wastes of the West countrie, 
Out where the white stars shine, 
Grim and silent as such men be, 
Rideth a man with a history— 
Anthony Considine. 
For the ways of men they are manifold 
As their differing views in life; 
Some sell themselves for the lust of gold, 
And some for the lust of strife: 
But...Read more of this...

The New Love

by Dorothy Parker
 If it shine or if it rain,
Little will I care or know.
Days, like drops upon a pane,
Slip, and join, and go.

At my door's another lad;
Here's his flower in my hair.
If he see me pale and sad,
Will he see me fair?

I sit looking at the floor.
Little will I think or say
If he seek another door;
Even if he stay....Read more of this...

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