Famous Sweet Love Poems by Famous Poets

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

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If I Were King

by William Ernest Henley
 If I were king, my pipe should be premier.
The skies of time and chance are seldom clear,
We would inform them all with bland blue weather.
Delight alone would need to shed a tear,
For dream and deed should war no more together.

Art should aspire, yet ugliness be dear;
Beauty, the shaft, should speed with wit for feather;
And love, sweet love, should never...Read more of this...

Sonnet 93: So shall I live supposing thou art true

by William Shakespeare
 So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceivèd husband; so love's face
May still seem love to me, though altered new,
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.
In many's looks, the false heart's history
Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange,
But...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXVI

by William Shakespeare
 Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?
O, know, sweet...Read more of this...

In the Dark Pine-Wood

by James Joyce
 In the dark pine-wood 
I would we lay, 
In deep cool shadow 
At noon of day. 

How sweet to lie there, 
Sweet to kiss, 
Where the great pine-forest 
Enaisled is! 

Thy kiss descending 
Sweeter were 
With a soft tumult 
Of thy hair. 

O unto the pine-wood 
At noon of day 
Come with me now, 
Sweet love, away....Read more of this...

An Evening

by William Allingham
 A sunset's mounded cloud; 
A diamond evening-star; 
Sad blue hills afar; 
Love in his shroud. 

Scarcely a tear to shed; 
Hardly a word to say; 
The end of a summer day; 
Sweet Love dead....Read more of this...

Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with Fortune and mens eyes

by William Shakespeare
 When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts...Read more of this...

Whilst it is prime

by Edmund Spenser
FRESH Spring, the herald of loves mighty king, 
In whose cote-armour richly are displayd 
All sorts of flowers, the which on earth do spring, 
In goodly colours gloriously arrayd¡ª 
Goe to my love, where she is carelesse layd, 5 
Yet in her winters bowre not well awake; 
Tell her the joyous time wil not be staid, 
Unlesse she doe him...Read more of this...

Manhattan Streets I Saunter'd Pondering

by Walt Whitman
 1
MANHATTAN’S streets I saunter’d, pondering, 
On time, space, reality—on such as these, and abreast with them, prudence. 

2
After all, the last explanation remains to be made about prudence; 
Little and large alike drop quietly aside from the prudence that suits immortality. 

The Soul is of itself;
All verges to it—all has reference to what ensues; 
All that a person does,...Read more of this...

Sonnet XCIII

by William Shakespeare
 So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband; so love's face
May still seem love to me, though alter'd new;
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.
In many's looks the false heart's history
Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange,
But...Read more of this...

A Greek Girl

by Amy Levy
 I may not weep, not weep, and he is dead.
A weary, weary weight of tears unshed
Through the long day in my sad heart I bear;
The horrid sun with all unpitying glare
Shines down into the dreary weaving-room,
Where clangs the ceaseless clatter of the loom,
And ceaselessly deft maiden-fingers weave
The fine-wrought web; and I from morn till eve
Work with the rest, and...Read more of this...

Sonnet 56: Sweet love renew thy force be it not said

by William Shakespeare
 Sweet love, renew thy force! Be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but today by feeding is allayed,
Tomorrow sharpened in his former might.
So, love, be thou, although today thou fill
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,
Tomorrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.
Let this sad interim like the...Read more of this...

Ode to Fanny

by John Keats
 Physician Nature! Let my spirit blood! 
O ease my heart of verse and let me rest; 
Throw me upon thy Tripod, till the flood 
Of stifling numbers ebbs from my full breast. 
A theme! a theme! great nature! give a theme; 
Let me begin my dream. 
I come -- I see thee, as thou standest there, 
Beckon me not...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXIX

by William Shakespeare
 Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
But now my gracious numbers are decay'd
And my sick Muse doth give another place.
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
He robs thee of and pays it thee again.
He lends thee virtue and...Read more of this...

Evening

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Oh! thou bright-beaming god, the plains are thirsting,
Thirsting for freshening dew, and man is pining;
Wearily move on thy horses--
Let, then, thy chariot descend!

Seest thou her who, from ocean's crystal billows,
Lovingly nods and smiles?--Thy heart must know her!
Joyously speed on thy horses,--
Tethys, the goddess, 'tis nods!

Swiftly from out his flaming chariot leaping,
Into her arms he springs,--the reins takes Cupid,--
Quietly stand...Read more of this...

Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride?

by William Shakespeare
 Why is my verse so barren of new pride?
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?
O, know, sweet...Read more of this...

Sonnet LVI

by William Shakespeare
 Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,
To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might:
So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill
Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness,
To-morrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.
Let this sad interim like the...Read more of this...

Sonnets ii

by William Shakespeare
 WHEN, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, 
I all alone beweep my outcast state, 
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, 
And look upon myself, and curse my fate, 
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 
Featured like him, like him with friends possest, 
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, 
With what I...Read more of this...

To Kate. (In Lieu Of A Valentine)

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Sweet Love and I had oft communed;
 We were, indeed, great friends,
And oft I sought his office, near
 Where Courtship Alley ends.

I used to sit with him, and smoke,
 And talk of your blue eyes,
And argue how I best might act
 To make your heart my prize.

He always seemed to have much time
 To hear me tell my joy,
So...Read more of this...

Honors - Part I

by Jean Ingelow
A Scholar is musing on his want of success.)

To strive—and fail. Yes, I did strive and fail;
  I set mine eyes upon a certain night
To find a certain star—and could not hail
      With them its deep-set light.
Fool that I was! I will rehearse my fault:
  I, wingless, thought myself on high to lift
Among...Read more of this...

The Warning

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 WHEN sounds the trumpet at the Judgment Day,

And when forever all things earthly die,

We must a full and true account supply
Of ev'ry useless word we dropp'd in play.

But what effect will all the words convey

Wherein with eager zeal and lovingly,

That I might win thy favour, labour'd I,
If on thine ear alone they die away?

Therefore, sweet love, thy conscience bear...Read more of this...

Sonnet 29

by William Shakespeare
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself...Read more of this...

So sweet love seemed that April morn

by Robert Seymour Bridges
 So sweet love seemed that April morn,
When first we kissed beside the thorn,
So strangely sweet, it was not strange
We thought that love could never change.

But I can tell--let truth be told--
That love will change in growing old;
Though day by day is naught to see,
So delicate his motions be.

And in the end 'twill come to pass
Quite to forget what once...Read more of this...

Star of My Heart

by Vachel Lindsay
 Star of my heart, I follow from afar. 
Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are, 
Where Time is not, and only dreamers are. 
Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead 
And a foolish Saxon seeks the manger-bed. 
O lead me to Jehovah's child 
Across this dreamland lone and wild, 
Then will I speak this prayer unsaid,...Read more of this...

Sweet Love Sweet Thorn When Lightly To My Heart

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to my heart
I took your thrust, whereby I since am slain,
And lie disheveled in the grass apart,
A sodden thing bedrenched by tears and rain,
While rainy evening drips to misty night,
And misty night to cloudy morning clears,
And clouds disperse across the gathering light,
And birds grow noisy, and the sun appears
Had I bethought me then,...Read more of this...

Remembrance

by Emily Brontë
 Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
That noble heart for ever, ever more?

Cold in...Read more of this...

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