The Best Love Poems of All Time

[Anonymous Angel]

There were a lot of lovely poems in this thread! One can definitely never go wrong with Pablo Neruda, he has been among my favorites for a while now...even though I can only understand it in English. A tragedy, I'm certain, as I do wonder what it must be like to understand it in Spanish.

Sara Teasdale is another of those poets whose attention to love I've found to be precious. I think she is severely overlooked in modern times and would love to see more people read her. She has an immense passion that shows through in all of her poetry, not just those written about love. I would highly recommend her to anyone.


*********

These are all Sara's...


TO-NIGHT

The moon is a curving flower of gold,
The sky is still and blue;
The mood was made for the sky to hold,
And I for you.

The moon is a flower without a stem,
The sky is luminous;
Eternity was made for them,
To-night for us.



ENOUGH

It is enough for me by day
To walk the same bright earth with him;
Enough that over us by night
The same great roof of stars is dim.

I have no care to bind the wind
Or set a fetter on the sea--
It is enough to feel his love
Blow like music over me.



TO ONE AWAY

I heard a cry in the night,
A thousand miles it came,
Sharp as a flash of light,
My name, my name!

It was your voice I heard,
You waked and loved me so--
I send you back this word,,
I know, I know!



THE KISS

Before you kissed me only the winds of heaven
Had kissed me, and the tenderness of rain--
Now you have come, how can I care for kisses
Like theirs again?

I sought the sea, she sent her winds to meet me,
They surged about me singing of the south--
I turned my head away to keep still holy
Your kiss upon my mouth.

And swift sweet rains of shining April weather
Found not my lips where living kisses are;
I bowed my head lest they put out my glory
As rain puts out a star.

I am my love's and he is mine forever,
Sealed with a seal and safe forevermore--
Think you that I could let a beggar enter
Where a king stood before?



BECAUSE

Oh, because you never tried
To bow my will or break my pride,
And nothing of the cave-man made
You want to keep me half afraid,
Nor ever with a conquering air
You thought to take me unaware--
Take me, for I love you more
Than I ever loved before.

And since the body's maidenhood
Alone were neither rare nor good
Unless with it I gave to you
A spirit still untrammeled, too,
Take my dreams and take my mind
That were masterless as wind;
And "Master!" I shall say to you
Since you never asked me to.



OFF ALGIERS

Oh give me neither love nor tears,
Nor dreams that sear the night with fire,
Go lightly on your pilgrimage
Unburdened by desire.

Forget me for a month, a year,
But, oh, beloved, think of me
When unexpected beauty burns
Like sudden sunlight on the sea.



I AM NOT YOURS

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love-put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in the rushing wind.



SHE WHO COULD BIND YOU

She who could bind you
Could bind fire to a wall;
She who could hold you
Could hold a waterfall;
She who could keep you
Could keep the wind from blowing
On a warm spring night
With a low moon glowing.



THOSE WHO LOVE

Those who love the most,
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise,
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak if at all
Of fragile, inconsequent things.

And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride,
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.

*********

I've always thought this poem rather pretty, too.


THE DANGERS OF METAPHOR

Metaphors are not to be trifled with.
A single metaphor can give birth to love.-Milan Kundera

The day when the rainbows came,
I was running up a steep hill toward you,
and, looking up to find you there, said:
That rainbow looks like a halo
around your head. These
were my first words to you
and, ever since, I have held you
against the sky, the way a man holds
a closed letter to the light without opening it,
and what I have seen there is something
I might want to open, carefully,
as if it were addressed to me. But
there are dangers in this, this beginning
with something as heavenly
as a rainbow. So I wait,
holding you up again each day
against a bleaker sky
and you become, this way,
less transparent, less embellished
by the numinous, but more real.
Last night there were no stars anywhere
and, today, desire's prism
held against the sky
yields only a pure white. In fact,
each day now the sky falls
a bit closer to you, merciful
as a guillotine,
keeping you earthbound, flawed--
a human thing only another human thing could love.

-Michael Blumenthal

[thevintagepiper]

Originally Posted by Anonymous Angel

Loreena McKennitt does a lovely version of The Lady of Shalott...it really is pretty.

I love that one-also her Highwayman.

[adria]

Tell me, if I caught you one day
and kissed the sole of your foot,
wouldn't you limp a little then,
afraid to crush my kiss?...

http://www.romanianvoice.com/poezii/poezii_tr/apoem.php

[Turk]

Fahriye Abla (*)

The air filled with a pungent charcoal smell
And the doors closed before sunset;
From that neighborhood as languid as a laudanum
You are the only surviving trace in my memory, you
Who smiled at the vast light of her own dreams.
With your eyes, your teeth, and your white neck
What a sweet neighbor you were, Fahriye abla!

Your house was as small as a neat box;
Its balcony thickly intertwined and the shades
Of ivies at the tiny hours of the sunset
Washed over in a nearby hidden brook.
A green flowerpot stood in your window all year round
And in spring acacias blossomed in your garden
What a charming neighbor you were, Fahriye abla!

Earlier you had long hair, then short and styled;
Light-complexioned, you were as tall as an ear of corn,
Your wrists laden with ample golden bracelets
Tickled the heart of all men
And occasionally your short skirt swayed in the wind.
You sang mostly obscene love songs
What a sexy neighbor you were, Fahriye Abla!

Rumors had it that you were in love with that lad
And finally you were married to a man from Erzincan
I don't know whether you still live with your first husband
Or whether you are in Erzincan of snowy mountaintops.
Let my heart recollect the long-forgotten days
Things that live in memory do not change by time
What a nice neighbor you were, Fahriye Abla!


Ahmet Muhip Dranas

Translated by Osman Turkay (1982)

(*) Literally, ``elder sister''; often used as a term of affection or
respect for a somewhat older girl or woman.

This poem telling a kid's platonic love to their young and beatiful neighbour. It's good but not my favorite. Although this is one of most famous poems of poet Ahmet Muhip Dranas.

[Dry_Snail]

Blue Bird

There is a blue bird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I am too tough for him,
I say, stay in there,
I am not going to let anybody see you.

Charles Bukowski

[fidelio]

I like this one:
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

[Mrs Dickens]

My favourite love poem is Sonnet 116. I think that is amazing!

[Sweet-Annie]

This one is considered the best love poem in Spanish, it was written by Francisco de Quevedo y villegas

"Cerrar podrá mis ojos la postrera
sombra que me llevare el blanco día,
y podrá desatar esta alma mía
hora a su afán ansioso lisonjear;

mas no, de esotra parte, en la ribera
dejare la memoria, en donde ardía;
nadar sabe mi llama el agua fría
y perder el respeto a ley severa

Alma a quien todo un día prisión ha sido,
venas que humor a tanto fuego han dado,
medulas que han gloriosamente ardido,

su cuerpo dejara, no su cuidado;
serán ceniza, mas tendrán sentido;
polvo serán, mas polvo enamorado"

This one was written by Garcilaso de la Vega. Personally, I consider this one much better than the first one.

"Escrito está en mi alma vuestro gesto,
y cuanto yo escribir de vos deseo;
vos sola lo escribisteis, yo lo leo
tan solo, que aun de vos me guardo en esto.

En esto estoy y estaré siempre puesto;
que aunque no cabe en mí cuanto en vos veo,
de tanto bien lo que no entiendo creo,
tomando ya la fe por presupuesto.

Yo no nací sino para quereros;
mi alma os ha cortado a su medida;
por hábito del alma mismo os quiero.

Cuando tengo confieso yo deberos;
por vos nací, por vos tengo la vida,
por vos he de morir, y por vos muero."


The last two verses are specially sweet.

[OZEED]

lyrics from Christian Rock group Tree63....
not a poem but poetic none the less, speaks about an agaphe love.
I love you perfectly
I hung my love upon a tree
If freedom is for free
what will it take to make you see,
you're perfectly made,imperfect in every way, you have been saved......

[pandora]

Shaespeare's sonnets have a special place for me.But sonnets 18 and 19 are my favorites.

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 owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

[whitetree]

i love all the poems of tagore
especially "the crescent moom"

[BIGDANNY]

There's a mountain and a hundred miles
between me and the jazz station, but sometimes
I can live with the static, a kind of extra-tempo
air-drum percussion, the dead singer's voice
tanged by smokes and too much gin. Some days,
all I want is no news, none of the time.

On the other hand, this afternoon it wasn't music
pulled me up, but what the field guide calls
the black-chinned hummingbird's "thin, excited chippering."
It had got itself trapped in the garage, and though
the big door was open, it stayed in the window
through which it could clearly see a world.

By the time I heard it, it was so exhausted
it let itself be cupped in my slow man's hands,
and emitted, as I closed it in, a single chip then silence.
At the edge of the woods I knelt and opened my hands.
Not even thumb-thick, its body pulsed with breath,
its wings spread across my palm, its eyelash legs

sprawled left and right, indecorously. I stroked it
as lightly as I could, as I might not my lover's breast
but the down made seemingly of air thereon, and twice.
Then it flew, a slow lilt into the distance. For a while,
even peace seemed possible, in the background
Billie Holiday singing "Strange Fruit."

[abirpal]

Wonderful..loved this. Still nothing to meet the Irish when it comes to a love poem.

[malwethien]

This is one of my favorites: By Robert Graves

She tells her love while half asleep;
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:

As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow
Despite the falling snow

[cUbik]

We know that one times one is one,
but an unicorn times a pear
have no idea what it is.
We know that five minus four is one
but a cloud minus a sailboat
have no idea what it is.
We know that eight
divided by eight is one,
but a mountain divided by a goat
have no idea what it is.
We know that one plus one is two,
but me and you, oh,
we have no idea what it is.

Oh, but a comforter
times a rabbit
is a red-headed one of course,
a cabbage divided by a flag
is a pig,
a horse minus a street-car
is an angel,
a cauliflower plus an egg
is an astragalus.

Only you and me
multiplied and divided
added and subtracted
remain the same...

Vanish from my mind!
Come back in my heart!