Famous No Love Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous No 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 no love poems. These examples illustrate what a famous no love poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Song-Day in Autumn

by D. H. Lawrence
When the autumn roses
  Are heavy with dew,
Before the mist discloses
  The leaf's brown hue,
You would, among the laughing hills
  Of yesterday
Walk innocent in the daffodils,
Coiffing up your auburn hair
In a puritan fillet, a chaste white snare
To catch and keep me with you there
  So far away.

When from the autumn roses
  Trickles the dew,
When the...Read more of this...

The Choice

by Robert William Service
 Some inherit manly beauty,
Some come into worldly wealth;
Some have lofty sense of duty,
Others boast exultant health.
Though the pick may be confusing,
Health, wealth, charm or character,
If you had the chance of choosing
 Which would you prefer?

I'm not sold on body beauty,
Though health I appreciate;
Character and sense of duty
I resign to Men of State.
I don't need a heap of money;
Oh I...Read more of this...

A White Blossom

by D. H. Lawrence
A tiny moon as white and small as a single jasmine flower
Leans all alone above my window, on night's wintry bower,
Liquid as lime-tree blossom, soft as brilliant water or rain
She shines, the one white love of my youth, which all sin cannot stain....Read more of this...

The Holidays

by Jane Taylor
 "Ah! don't you remember, 'tis almost December,
And soon will the holidays come;
Oh, 'twill be so funny, I've plenty of money,
I'll buy me a sword and a drum. " 

Thus said little Harry, unwilling to tarry,
Impatient from school to depart; 
But we shall discover, this holiday lover
Knew little what was in his heart. 

For when on returning, he gave up...Read more of this...

Love Sonnet XVII

by Pablo Neruda
 I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a...Read more of this...

The Song Of The Strange Ascetic

by G K Chesterton
 If I had been a Heathen,
I'd have praised the purple vine,
My slaves should dig the vineyards,
And I would drink the wine.
But Higgins is a Heathen,
And his slaves grow lean and grey,
That he may drink some tepid milk
Exactly twice a day.

If I had been a Heathen,
I'd have crowned Neaera's curls,
And filled my life with love affairs,
My house with dancing girls;
But...Read more of this...

This Much And More

by Djuna Barnes
If my lover were a comet
Hung in air,
I would braid my leaping body
In his hair.

Yea, if they buried him ten leagues
Beneath the loam,
My fingers they would learn to dig
And I’d plunge home!...Read more of this...

The Sun Rising

by John Donne
 Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys and sour 'prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so...Read more of this...

Shall I compare thee to a summers day? (Sonnet 18 XVIII)

by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not...Read more of this...

Aware

by D. H. Lawrence
Slowly the moon is rising out of the ruddy haze,
Divesting herself of her golden shift, and so
Emerging white and exquisite; and I in amaze
See in the sky before me, a woman I did not know
I loved, but there she goes and her beauty hurts my heart;
I follow her down the night, begging her not to depart....Read more of this...

Return

by D. H. Lawrence
Now I am come again, you who have so desired
My coming, why do you look away from me?
Why does your cheek burn against me--have I inspired
Such anger as sets your mouth unwontedly?

Ah, here I sit while you break the music beneath
Your bow; for broken it is, and hurting to hear:
Cease then from music--does anguish of absence bequeath
Me only aloofness when...Read more of this...

Sonnet 22: My glass shall not persuade me I am old

by William Shakespeare
 My glass shall not persuade me I am old
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee Time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me.
How can I then be...Read more of this...

Reminder

by D. H. Lawrence
    Do you remember
How night after night swept level and low
Overhead, at home, and had not one star,
Nor one narrow gate for the moon to go
    Forth to her field of November.

    And you remember,
How towards the north a red blot on the sky
Burns like a blotch of anxiety
Over the forges,...Read more of this...

A Pang of Reminiscence

by D. H. Lawrence
High and smaller goes the moon, she is small and very far from me,
Wistful and candid, watching me wistfully, and I see
Trembling blue in her pallor a tear that surely I have seen before,
A tear which I had hoped that even hell held not again in store....Read more of this...

Coldness in Love

by D. H. Lawrence
And you remember, in the afternoon
The sea and the sky went grey, as if there had sunk
A flocculent dust on the floor of the world: the festoon
Of the sky sagged dusty as spider cloth,
And coldness clogged the sea, till it ceased to croon.

A dank, sickening scent came up from the grime
Of weed that blackened the shore, so that I recoiled
Feeling...Read more of this...

Its Raining In Love

by Richard Brautigan
 I don't know what it is,
 but I distrust myself
 when I start to like a girl
 a lot.

 It makes me nervous.
 I don't say the right things
 or perhaps I start
 to examine,
 evaluate,
 compute
 what I am saying.

 If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?"
 and she says, "I don't know,"
 I start...Read more of this...

Cherry Robbers

by D. H. Lawrence
Under the long, dark boughs, like jewels red
      In the hair of an Eastern girl
Shine strings of crimson cherries, as if had bled
      Blood-drops beneath each curl.

Under the glistening cherries, with folded wings
      Three dead birds lie:
Pale-breasted throstles and a blackbird, robberlings
   ...Read more of this...

Lost

by Robert William Service
 "Black is the sky, but the land is white--
 (O the wind, the snow and the storm!)--
 Father, where is our boy to-night?
 Pray to God he is safe and warm."

 "Mother, mother, why should you fear?
 Safe is he, and the Arctic moon
 Over his cabin shines so clear--
 Rest and sleep, 'twill be morning soon."

"It's getting dark...Read more of this...

Magpiety

by Philip Levine
 You pull over to the shoulder
 of the two-lane
road and sit for a moment wondering
 where you were going
in such a hurry. The valley is burned
 out, the oaks
dream day and night of rain
 that never comes.
At noon or just before noon
 the short shadows
are gray and hold what little
 life survives.
In the still heat the engine
 clicks, although
the...Read more of this...

The Ladies

by Rudyard Kipling
 I've taken my fun where I've found it;
 I've rouged an' I've ranged in my time;
I've 'ad my pickin' o' seethearts,
 An' four o' the lot was prime.
One was an 'arf-caste widow,
 One was awoman at Prome,
One was the wife of a jemadar-sais
 An' one is a girl at 'ome.

Now I aren't no 'and with the ladies,
 For, takin'...Read more of this...

How Do I Love Thee?

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as...Read more of this...

My Loves

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...

I Loved You

by Alexander Pushkin
I loved you, and I probably still do,
And for a while the feeling may remain…
But let my love no longer trouble you,
I do not wish to cause you any pain.
I loved you; and the hopelessness I knew,
The jealousy, the shyness—though in vain—
Made up a love so tender and so true
As may God grant you to be loved again.


Translated by Genia...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...

Love's Philosophy

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...

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