Love
20 Most Romantic Love Poems
Katie11 min read
Aren't love poems just the best? I love to read inspiring poems about love and romance because they just renew my spirit and refresh my relationship with my spouse. I've gathered my twenty favorite love poems that I keep going back to again and again, and I thought I'd share them!
1. Life in a Love ...
by Robert Browning **
**
Escape me? Never- Beloved! While I am I, and you are you, So long as the world contains us both, Me the loving and you the loth, While the one eludes, must the other pursue. My life is a fault at last, I fear: It seems too much like a fate, indeed! Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed. But what if I fail of my purpose here? It is but to keep the nerves at strain, To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, And baffled, get up to begin again,- So the chase takes up one's life, that's all. While, look but once from your farthest bound, At me so deep in the dust and dark, No sooner the old hope drops to ground Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark, I shape me- Ever Removed!
2. Come Live with Me and Be My Love ...
by Christopher Marlowe **
**
Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold; A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love. The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love.
3. A Sonnet ...
by William Shakespeare **
**
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come: love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
4. A Red Red Rose ...
by Robert Burns **
**
O my Luve's like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June; O my Luve's like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune. As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I; And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry: Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun; I will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o' life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only Luve, And fare thee weel awhile! And I will come again, my Luve, Tho' it ware ten thousand mile.
5. Troubador Lines...
Alas, I thought I knew so much Of love, and yet I know so little! For I cannot stop myself loving her From whom I shall never have joy. My whole heart, and all of me from myself She has taken, and her own self, and all the world, For when she took herself from me, she left me nothing But desire and a yearning heart.
6. The Chance of Happiness Equals the Risk of Pain ...
by Nicholas Gordon
Whenever you love, it's too good to be true. Even so, it's truer than you believe, Nor will you know till it vanishes again. Time is a sea which opens where you cleave Yet roils over what you leave behind. For now, my love sings in the stars, Or hisses against rocks like the sea, Unraveling your life when you pause to grieve, Returning with the sunlight, with the rain.
7. Untitled ...
And if my homage she'd receive, My wooing and my service true-- The sleepless nights I have been through, The grief I bear from morn till eve, Could never take me from her sight; I'd be a slave unto delight, All burdens I would gladly bear And for my heart's grief I'd not care.
8. The Sacred Fruit ...
by Gary R. Hess
The sacred fruit of your soul was lost Taken unrightfully, stolen It hurt immensely You shared the holiness with others To rid the raunch treachery Then met a man who treated you horribly Abused you, hit you, took control of you I came and pleased you Treated you well, made you happy Shared our thoughts Entered each others minds We talked about memories Things we had Things we want What we need We laughed Cried Smiled The love we had The love we have I want to be with you till the end I want to give you my fruit And share my wine
9. Infinite Love ...
by Mahatma Gandhi **
**
Infinite Love is a weapon of matchless potency. It is the "summum bonum" of Life. It is an attribute of the brave, in fact it is their all. It does not come within the reach of the coward. It is no wooden or lifeless dogma but a living and life-giving force. It is the special attribute of the heart.
10. Untitled ...
by Fakhruddin Iraqi, translated by J. Star
Love courses through everything, No, Love is everything. How can you say, there is no love, when nothing but Love exists? All that you see has appeared because of Love. All shines from Love, All pulses with Love, All flows from Love-- No, once again all is Love!
11. If Thou Must Love Me ...
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning **
**
If thou must love me, let it be for naught Except for love's sake only. Do not say "I love her for her smile...her look...her way of speaking gently- For a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day." For these things in themselves, beloved, may be changed, or changed for thee--and love so wrought may be unwrought so. Neither love me for thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry- A creature might forget to weep, who bore their comfort long, and lose their love thereby But love me for love's sake, that evermore thou mayst love on, Through love's eternity.
12. From the Canterbury Tales ...
by Geoffrey Chaucer **
**
Do not sing for a bird or a flower, Nor for snow nor for ice, Nor even for cold or warmth, Nor for the return of the green to the meadows; Nor for any other pleasure Do I sing, nor have I ever sung, But for my lady for whom I long, For she is the fairest in the world.
13. Words ...
by William Butler Yates **
**
I had this thought a while ago, "My darling cannot understand What I have done, or what would do In this blind bitter land." And I grew weary of the sun Until my thoughts cleared up again, Remembering that the best I have done Was done to make it plain; That every year I have cried, "At length My darling understands it all, Because I have come into my strength, And words obey my call;" That had she done so who can say What would have shaken from the sieve? I might have thrown poor words away And been content to live.
14. "the Sunrise Ruby"
from The Essential Rumi, translation by C. Barks
In the early morning hour, just before dawn, lover and beloved wake and take a drink of water. She asks, "Do you love me or yourself more? Really, tell the absolute truth." He says, "There's nothing left of me. I'm like a ruby held up to the sunrise, Is it still a stone, or a world made of redness? It has no resistance to sunlight."
15. Love Sonnet ...
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 everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, - I love thee with breadth, smiles, tears, of all my life! - and If God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
16. Sonnet 18 ...
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 dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this give life to thee.
17. A Charm Invests a Face ...
by Emily Dickinson **
**
A charm invests a face Imperfectly beheld. The lady dare not lift her veil For fear it be dispelled. But peers beyond her mesh, And wishes, and denies, Lest interview annul a want That image satisfies.
18. Art Thou Pale for Weariness ...
by Percy Bysshe Shelley **
**
Art thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionless Among the stars that have a different birth, And ever changing, like a joyless eye That finds no object worth its constancy?
19. Beauty...
by John Masefield **
**
Have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain: I have seen the lady April bringing in the daffodils, Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain. I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea, And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships; But the loveliest things of beauty God ever has showed to me Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips.
20. Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her ...
If questioning would make us wise No eyes would ever gaze in eyes; If all our tale were told in speech No mouths would wander each to each. Were spirits free from mortal mesh And love not bound in hearts of flesh No aching breasts would yearn to meet And find their ecstasy complete. For who is there that lives and knows The secret powers by which he grows? Were knowledge all, what were our need To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?. Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why" I love you now until I die. For I must love because I live And life in me is what you give. Did these poems inspire a romantic mood in you? I hope so! Share them with someone special in your life by reading them aloud or sending them in a written note. Do you have other great love poems that I skipped over? Post titles, links, or the actual poem below... I'd love to read them! Other Great Posts on Romance: • 12 Most Famous Love Stories of All Time … • 7 Most Romantic Destinations … • 50+ Most Romantic Movies … • 20 Inspiring Quotes about Love … • Top 20 Classic Romantic Movies …
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