The Best Love Poems of All Time

*YOU*
God is love,
Love is creation,
As you were created,
Out of this act called love.

Among the forests,of serpentire'and simple dreams.
Flavoring the sense that has so art troubled you thus'
Painted,deserted,calling for aid,
Become,
Whole...born.
Awake,see what is anew befroth untouched breathing freely.
Sit comfortable,uncomfortably shallowed vessle,
That which so everently houses you.
Warm summer rain,bashing down smooth youth's brow
Purchase the whimper,the winter,your very first cold.
All the things,the shiny,the red ball,or green dress.
Now is loss ever so gently,YOU.

*Songfuse*

my favorite love poem at the moment:

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Auden

For Jane:With All the Love I Had, Which Was Not Enough:-



I pick up the skirt,

I pick up the sparkling beads

in black,

this thing that moved once

around flesh,

and I call God a liar,

I say anything that moved

like that

or knew

my name

could never die

in the common verity of dying,

and I pick

up her lovely

dress,

all her loveliness gone,

and I speak to all the gods,

Jewish gods, Christ-gods,

chips of blinking things,

idols, pills, bread,

fathoms, risks,

knowledgeable surrender,

rats in the gravy of 2 gone quite mad

without a chance,

hummingbird knowledge, hummingbird chance,

I lean upon this,

I lean on all of this

and I know:

her dress upon my arm:

but

they will not

give her back to me.


Bukowski.

Brings tears to my eyes everytime.

Hello, I like the idea of this poll. Though it will always be a very subjective sort of thing, and so much the better for it, for it shows how someone can be touched by a piece of work written, possible, hundreds of years ago and a thousand miles away. Really enjoyed reading some poetry that I've never encountered before, some that I'm surprised to see/not see here. (The Lovesong Of J. Alfred Prufrock, I feel, is less of a 'love' poem, in the romantic sense of the word than say 'La Figlia che Piange') but my favourite is He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats.

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The Blue, the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I enjoy this poem partly becuase it is technically perfect; see the skill he has over so few lines, how expertly crafted it is, how although he uses the same words for the rhymes it feels perfectly natural, without any strong (that is to say undeliberate, for all short poetry, most notably sonnets, are very self-consciously artificial) sense of artificiality, as if he's improvising this to a lover. It is also lyrically beautiful. Those few lines sound so sweet that if you say them aloud, you'd better make sure you brush yur teeth afterwards. But not only is it stylistically perfect. There is real substance created in those few lines, feelings that all who have been in love have felt, the desire to connect on a more than earthly level with a partner. I think it has much in common with the Metaphysical Poets.

I think you're right. Absoulutely (I meant that spelling) beautiful...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lavendar1

I think you're right. Absoulutely (I meant that spelling) beautiful...

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I take it by that you don't like it, then? Why not?

You've misunderstood -- I do like the poem. In fact, in an earlier thread, I posted several of Yeats' poems, "When You Are Old" and "A Deep Sworn Vow" as favorites.

While I'm no scholar of poetry, I know what pleases my ear and my heart. And Mr. Yeats verse gets "the nod..." What I mean to say is that his poetry gets my approval.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I also like your choices. There are plenty of other poems Yeats' wrote that are great love poems; he could have a category to himself.

you know, that's a wonderful idea, sub-sections for poets like we have for authors.

Rachy, i missed your earlier "What Were They Like" post. i emphatically think it's great.

It just effected me because I'm very anti-war and at the time that we were reading I was doing Vietnam coursework for history! I love it!

Sorry if this is repeated. I think I've read all the pages, but can't be sure

A slumber did my spirit seal
I knew no human fears
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years

No motion has she now nor force
She neither hears nor sees
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks and stones and trees

Wordsworth

A lesser known love poem by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678):

The Definition Of Love

My love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high:
It was begotten by Despair
Upon impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed,
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

For Fate with jealousy eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close:
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic power depose.

And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though love's whole world on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embraced,

Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear,
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.

As lines, so loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet;
But ours, so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.

Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.

A Description of Love - Sir Walter Raleigh

Now what is Love, I pray thee, tell?
It is that fountain and that well
Where pleasure and repentance dwell;
It is perhaps the sauncing bell
That tolls all into heaven or hell:
And this is Love, as I hear tell.

Yet what is Love, I pray thee, say?
It is work on holy-day,
It is December matched with May,
When lusty bloods in fresh array
Hear ten months after of the play:
And this is Love, as I hear say.

Yet what is Love, I pray thee sain?
It is sunshine mixed with rain;
It is a toothache, or like pain,
It is a game where none hath gain;
The lass saith no, yet would full fain:
And this is Love, as I hear sain.

Yet what is Love, I pray thee say?
It is a yea, it is a nay
A pretty kind of sporting fray,
It is a thing will soon away.
Then take the vantage while you may:
And this is Love, as I hear say.

Yet what is Love, I pray thee show?
A thing that creeps, it cannot go,
A prize that passeth to and fro,
A thing for one, a thing for mo,
And he that proves shall find it so;
And this is Love, sweet friend, I trow.

Lovely :D

Easy! She Walks In Beauty Like The Night by Byron. It should be easy to find. If not then shakespeare's sonnets never stear wrong. But Byron has it for me.

Shakespeare is maestro, isn't he ;)

Sonnet LXXV

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found;
Now proud as an enjoyer and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure;
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.