The Best Love Poems of All Time

[Farfalla]

I've always thought Neruda's love and sex poems were the best... but only in their original spanish. Alot of the lyrical effect is lost when its translated.

But still, "I Have Gone Marking" ( "He ido marcando") is definatly one of the best love poems ever written.

the best lines are the last ones:

Cuando he llagado al verice mas atrvido y frio
mi corazon se cierra como una flor nocturna.

translation:

When i have reached the most awesome and the coldest summit
my heart closes like a nocturnal flower.

[mono]

I posted a Shakespeare sonnet here earlier, LXXV, I think, but I thought to share the below that I just read:

My lady carries love within her eyes;
All that she looks on is made a pleasanter;
Upon her path men turn to gaze at her;
He whom she greeteth feels his heart to rise,
And droops his troubled visage, full of sighs,
And of his evil heart is then aware:
Hate loves, and pride becomes a worshipper.
O women, help to praise her in somewise.
Humbleness, and the hope that hopeth well,
By speech of hers into the mind are brought,
And who beholds is blessed oftenwhiles.
The look she hath when she a little smiles
Cannot be said, nor holden in the thought;
'Tis such a new and gracious miracle.

Dante Alighieri
Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

[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.

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.




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

[mono]

Yet another post:

Sonnet LXXV

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
jBut came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
'Vain man,' said she, 'thou do'st in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay.
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.'
'Not so,' quoth I, 'let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name,
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.'

Sir Edmund Spenser

[WingedSpirit]

just got one ancient Chinese poem:

by Wen Tinjun

The feelings of the separation
What there is to say
But that the heart is
An endless river of stars

[Jester]

Some of the best love songs are the best poetry personally my two favorites are "leaving on a jet plane" and "Why don't you and I" the latter one is by CHad Kroeger and Santana

[BSturdy]

Morning Sleep

When ye morning riseth redde
Rise not thou, but keepe thy bedde,
When ye dawne is dull and graye
Sleepe is still ye better way,
Beastes arise betimes - but then
They are beastes, and we are men.

Is ye weather fayre and fine?
It shall give thee dreams divine;
Doth it poure with pelting rayne?
'Tis a hint to doze agayne.
Is it niether drye nor wette?
Waite until ye weather's sette.

Wouldst thou walke unscaveng'd streetes,
Catch from shaken mattes ye sweetes,
Straye forlorne though chillie roomes,
Stumble over casuall broomes,
Scowling house-maydes round thee scan?
These befall ye earlie man.

Morning sleepe avoydeth broyles,
Wasteth not in greedye toyles;
Doth not suffer care nor greefe,
Giveth aking bones releefe.
Of all ye crimes beneath ye sunne,
Say, which in morning sleepe was done?

Anon.

Maybe it's a burlesque, but I love it literally: Can be used as a love poem
In conjunction with a certain Ian Dury track

[Scheherazade]

Which part of the UK are you from originally BSturdy?

[BSturdy]

The Bard is hard to beat. Not really a poem exactly but, anyway:

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

[pepper39]

my room is empty...
my self
self-inflicted scars, by myself.

Spinning out of control...
once again I'll go away and hold on
to my pride where I lock it up inside
my room...
my self

it's all empty now
you've drained me of my dignity
self-infliction of wounds poured over
a sauce of *%#@.

easily I fall down on to you from 90 stories
over and over...

Patience is time.
time is ugly, ugly, like me...
easily flying by, 90 stories down onto you.

green eyes, brown possessive cold stares
my life is over and i'm going down with it ending up
in a nightmare of my sanity pushing til' the end of my
chain, chain of love and anger.

full of myself...
once again we come back to you, back again...
we come back to you!

dw

[Scheherazade]

BSturdy> Yes, it seems like Romeo has said it all

Pepper39> Is that your own poetry?

[midwest]

This is a good one, short for Donne yet that doesn't make it easier to work through.

Stay, O sweet, and do not rise;
The light that shines comes from thine eyes;
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
Because that you and I must part.
Stay, or else my joys will die.
And perish in their infancy.


Originally I think this is about a dream he had of his wife that had passed on, but let me know what you think!

[Hope`]

My favourite is Wordsworth's - She Was a Phantom of Delight...


She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.

[Rechka]

I thought this poem was beautiful when I read it and I'm normally not a fan of "love poems".

Amor condusse noi ad una morte

Love is an anguish, a question,
a luminous doubt suspended;
it is a desire to know the whole of you
and a fear of finally knowing it.

To love is to reconstruct, when you are away,
your steps, your silences, your words,
and to pretend to follow your thoughts
when unmoving at last by me side, you fall silent.

Love is a secret rage,
an icy and diabolic pride.

To love is not to sleep when in my bed
you dream between my circling arms,
and to hate the dream in which, beneath your brow,
you abandon yourself, perhaps in other arms.

To love is to listen at your breast,
until my greedy ear is glutted,
to the noise of your blood and the tide
of your measured breath.

To love is to absorb your young sap
and join our mouths in one river-bed
until the breeze of your breath
impregnates my entrails forever.

Love is a mute, green envy,
a subtle and shining greed.

To love is to provoke the sweet moment
in which your skin seekd my awakened skin,
to gratify the nocturnal appetite
and to die once more the same death—
provisional, heart-rending, dark.

Love is a thirst, like that of a wound
that burns without being consumed or healing,
and the hunger of a tormented mouth
that begs for more and more and is not sated.

Love is an unaccustomed luxury
and a voracious gluttony, always empty.

But to love is also to close our eyes,
to let sleep invade our bodies
like a river of darkness and oblivion,
and to sail without a course, drifting;
because love, in the end, is indolence.

[SwiftSleigh7]

Some of the best love songs are the best poetry personally my two favorites are "leaving on a jet plane" and "Why don't you and I" the latter one is by CHad Kroeger and Santana

I agree with Leaving on a Jet Plane! It's so sweet!

One of the best love poems is this one... although I don't know who wrote it:

Absence

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle
Everything I do is stitched with its colour

Tell me what you think of this one?