The Best Love Poems of All Time

Ah, Sappho. Her poems are some of the rarest on the planet. I was just reading that they found another one of her complete poems...very cool. That brings the total number of complete existing Sappho poems to 4.

I just picked up 'The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats' in paperback. It's the first paperback edition of the authorized canon of Yeats's poetry. 382 poems!


WHITE MAGIC

George Sterling (1869-1926)

KEEP ye her brow with starshine crost
And bind with ghostly light her hair,
O powers benign, lest I accost
Song's peaceless angel unaware!

One eve her whisper came to earth,
As eastward woke a thorny star,
To tell me of her kingdom's worth
And what her liberations are:

She hath the Edens in her gift
And songs of sovereignties unborn;
In realms agone her turrets lift,
Wrought from the purples of the morn.

Where swings to foam the dusky sea,
She waits with sapphires in her hand
Whose light shall make thy spirit be
Lost in a still, enchanted land.

Musing, she hears the subtle tunes
From chords where faery fingers stray--
A rain of pearl from crumbling moons
Less clear and delicate than they.

The strain we lost and could not find
Think we her haunted heart forgets?
She weaves it with a troubled wind
And twilight music that regrets.

Often she stands, unseen, aloof,
To watch beside an ocean's brink
The gorgeous, evanescent woof
Cast from the loom of suns that sink.

Often, in eyries of the West,
She waits a lover from afar--
Frailties of blossom on her breast
And o'er her brow the evening star.

She stands to greet him unaware,
Who cannot find her if he seek:
A sigh, a scent of heavenly hair--
And oh, her breath is on his cheek!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bix12

Ah, Sappho. Her poems are some of the rarest on the planet. I was just reading that they found another one of her complete poems...very cool. That brings the total number of complete existing Sappho poems to 4.

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I also love Sappho; having picked up a translated collection of her works a number of months ago, I paged through the whole book in a shockingly short time. If you would like to take a look, amuse, simon, and I pieced together a thread, sharing some of our favorite works:
http://www.online-literature.com/for...ead.php?t=3095

I love this one by Sarah Teasdale

I said,"I have shut my heart"
As one shuts an open door,
That Love may starve therein
And trouble me no more."

BUt over the roofs there came
the wet new wind of May,
And a tune blew up from the curb
Where the street-pianos play.

My room was white with the sun
And Love cried out in me,
"I am strong,I will break your heart
Unless you set me free."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rachy

there is one poem that I love and will always stay with me called, "What were they like?" by Denise Levertov:

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Thanks for this. It's great. Here's another great (perhaps THE other great) Vietnam Poem

To Whom It May Concern
by Adrian Mitchell


I was run over by the truth one day.
Ever since the accident I've walked this way
So stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain,
Couldn't find myself so I went back to sleep again
So fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Every time I shut my eyes all I see is flames.
Made a marble phone book and I carved all the names
So coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
So stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Where were you at the time of the crime?
Down by the Cenotaph drinking slime
So chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out,
You take the human being and you twist it all about
So scrub my skin with women
Chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Sonnets From the Portuguese

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, sillent, drawing aigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curved point - what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us, and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Beloved - where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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I have always loved and admired Thomas Moore with all my heart. To stand against such a tide and still be pristine, pure and even filled with compassion and love for those of dark heart and soul, well to me such a life is like the very stars of heaven that bring light and warmth somehow, however faint to a black and cold place.
That poem to his wife reminds me of Tolkien's love for his Edith and how just before her death they would still steal away to the woods like Beren and Luthien. Such people make me weep even when they say nothing at all. Their very breath seem hallowed.

Sonnet 116
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.

Auden: Lay Your Sleeping Head My Love, Human on my faithless arm........

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

There are so many beautiful love poems and I agree with many of those which are posted on here. However, my favorite love poem is by E.E. Cummings. I love his poetry althought I am first to admit that I can barely appreciate and praise them as they should be. :rolleyes:

I would like to hear what you think of this poem as everytime I read it, I am in awe and cannot stop my heart pounding in my chest. So strong to me the feelings and sentiments he expresses in this poem. :blush:




somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

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I vote for this one too.

As I wrote before, music is poetry, I think, so: (please, please, PLEASE don't get discouraged because of the fact that it's U2 again):

U2 - All I Want Is You

You say you want
Diamonds on a ring of gold
You say you want
Your story to remain untold

But all the promises we make
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you

You say you'll give me
A highway with no one on it
Treasure just to look upon it
All the riches in the night

You say you'll give me
Eyes in a moon of blindness
A river in a time of dryness
A harbour in the tempest
But all the promises we make
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you

You say you want
Your love to work out right
To last with me through the night

You say you want
Diamonds on a ring of gold
Your story to remain untold
Your love not to grow cold

All the promises we break
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you

You...all I want is...
You...all I want is...
You...all I want is...
You...

I won't post it here because of its length,
"The Convent Threshold" by Christina Rossetti.

http://celtic.benderweb.net/cr/cr55.html

and a shorter one..
(Sara Teasdale)

Oh you are coming, coming, coming,
How will hungry Time put by the hours till then? --
But why does it anger my heart to long so
For one man out of the world of men?

Oh I would live in myself only
And build my life lightly and still as a dream --
Are not my thoughts clearer than your thoughts
And colored like stones in a running stream?

Now the slow moon brightens in heaven,
The stars are ready, the night is here --
Oh why must I lose myself to love you,
My dear?

I should read dante, but Byron makes me cry.

I can't choose one poem as The Best Love Poem. A lot of difficult with so many poets, great poets indeed! Names like Pablo Neruda, Mario Benedetti, Antonio Machado, William Shakespeare, Amado Nervo, Gustavo Adolfo Becker, Ruben Dario, Gabriela Mistral, Jorge Luis Borges, Jose Martí, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Robert Frost, Christina Rossetti, and the list go on.
Here are two poems by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you...
I do not love you as if you were 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 certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
that this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Spanish Version
No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.
Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.
Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,
sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.


You will remember...
You will remember that leaping stream
where sweet aromas rose and trembled,
and sometimes a bird, wearing water
and slowness, its winter feathers.
You will remember those gifts from the earth:
indelible scents, gold clay,
weeds in the thicket and crazy roots,
magical thorns like swords.
You'll remember the bouquet you picked,
shadows and silent water,
bouquet like a foam-covered stone.
That time was like never, and like always.
So we go there, where nothing is waiting;
we find everything waiting there.

Spanish
Recordarás aquella quebrada caprichosa
a donde los aromas palpitantes treparon,
de cuando en cuando un pájaro vestido
con agua y lentitud: traje de invierno.
Recordarás los dones de la tierra:
irascible fragancia, barro de oro,
hierbas del matorral, locas raíces,
sortílegas espinas como espadas.
Recordarás el ramo que trajiste,
ramo de sombra y agua con silencio,
ramo como una piedra con espuma.
Y aquella vez fue como nunca y siempre:
vamos allí donde no espera nada
y hallamos todo lo que está esperando.

The I do Not Love You , reminds me of one of Rumi's:

This Will Not Win Him

Reason says,
I will win him with my eloquence.

Love says,
I will win him with my silence.

Soul says,
How can I ever win him
When all I have is already his?

He does not want, he does not worry,
He does not seek a sublime state of euphoria -
How then can I win him
With sweet wine or gold? . . .

He is not bound by the senses -
How then can I win him
With all the riches of China?

He is an angel,
Though he appears in the form of a man.
Even angels cannot fly in his presence -
How then can I win him
By assuming a heavenly form?

He flies on the wings of God,
His food is pure light -
How then can I win him
With a loaf of baked bread?

He is neither a merchant, nor a tradesman -
How then can I win him
With a plan of great profit?

He is not blind, nor easily fooled -
How then can I win him
By lying in bed as if gravely ill?

I will go mad, pull out my hair,
Grind my face in the dirt -
How will this win him?

He sees everything -
how can I ever fool him?

He is not a seeker of fame,
A prince addicted to the praise of poets -
How then can I win him
With flowing rhymes and poetic verses?

The glory of his unseen form
Fills the whole universe
How then can I win him
With a mere promise of paradise?

I may cover the earth with roses,
I may fill the ocean with tears,
I may shake the heavens with praises -
none of this will win him.

There is only one way to win him,
this Beloved of mine -

Become his.