The Best Love Poems of All Time

[Midas]

Well Brigitte, If your teacher goes along with those sentiments in the poem, I would think she is a little indecisive, and confused about 'love'. It is certainly at variance with Shakespeare's idea of love, as it appears to turn it on and off - like so many do with their idea of love.

It illustrates our confusion with the word. It has become so misused, and abused through use over time. This is often because of the way some interchange the word love, with 'in love'.

To me, love, between two people, if it ever existed (Shakespeare defined), would continue after being 'in love' could well have died. or faded. We love our parents, and/or our children, but we are not 'in love' with them.

Perhaps, Brigitte, in that poem, the confusion is occasioned by the writer being confused, or not understanding the difference. By that I mean that they both 'loved' each other, but their being 'in love' as in romantic displays
that people 'in love' seek as an expression, and confirmation,were not always evident and therefore created that doubt.

Just some thought to toss around.

[quasimodo1]

The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
....


-- Dylan Thomas

[quasimodo1]

Evening Song

LOOK off, dear Love, across the shallow sands,
And mark yon meeting of the sun and the sea,
How long they kiss in sight of all the lands.
Ah! longer, longer we.

Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun,
As Egypt's red pearl dissolved in rosy wine,
And Cleopatra night drinks all. 'Tis done,
Love, lay thine hand in mine.

Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart;
Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands.
O night! divorce our sun and sky apart
Never our lips, our hands. Sidney Lanier

[Nottagore]

WOW!God me!I am a new comer,but deeply got lost here for so many beautiful poems.....I am from China living in Shanghai ,a good listener and spectator,but I love english cultures so much,and especially by Shelley and Lord Byron!Also here is a popular one in China by Tagore,have perfect translation in Chinese:


The furthest distance

The furthest distance in the world
Is not between life and death
But when I stand in front of you
Yet you don't know that
I love you

Excuse me sir/madam, but this "very popular" poem that appears in hundreds, if not thousands of websites, blogs, and BBSes across China is NOT by Tagore. It is a poorly translated version of a "Poetry by relay writing" by a group of Taiwanese students based on two lines of a poem written by a popular female Taiwanese novelist.
Somewhere along the line, someone put in the "Tagore" tag and post it on one Chinese BBS, and as is always the case, that spread and spread.
Several disclaimers have appeared on various forums, but as usual, more people would rather believe in myth rather than truth.
There are at least 8 different English versions (translations) of this poem, some of which are incomprehensible.
E.g. The remotest distance is not in the world ;
Raw and dead but;
and
On the boundary farthest distance
Is not to living with die
and
The farest distance in the world
is not that between living and death
==============================

I notice there are some Chinese nationals visiting this forum; for them, here is one site you can read up on the background to this "myth". It is written mostly in Chinese.
users.openface.ca/~dstephen/fake-tagore.htm

For people who cannot read Chinese, but are curious about what this is all about, there is one version that is mostly in English:
The Story Behind "Furthest/Farthest Distance"
rainlane.com/dispbbs.asp?boardID=26&ID=24645&page=1

and a "disclaimer" at rpi.edu/~jix/disclaimer.htmlposted by Muyv (Xiaoyun Ji), one of the original translators of the version that is quoted by the poster on this forum.

[Annabel Lee]

These are two of my favorite love poems, both by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

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 candlelight.
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 the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
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 change 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
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

[quasimodo1]

To Annabel Lee: Ulalume--A Ballad

THE skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere--
The leaves they were withering and sere:
It was night, in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir:--
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul--
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll--
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek,
In the ultimate climes of the Pole--
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek,
In the realms of the Boreal Pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere--
Our memories were treacherous and sere;
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year--
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber,
(Though once we had journeyed down here)
We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent,
And star-dials pointed to morn--
As the star-dials hinted of morn--
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn--
Astarte's bediamonded crescent,
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said--"She is warmer than Dian;
She rolls through an ether of sighs--
She revels in a region of sighs.
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion,
To point us the path to the skies--
To the Lethean peace of the skies--
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes--
Come up, through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said--"Sadly this star I mistrust--
Her pallor I strangely mistrust--
Ah, hasten!--ah, let us not linger!
Ah,fly!--let us fly!--for we must."
In terror she spoke; letting sink her
Wings till they trailed in the dust--
In agony sobbed; letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust--
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied--"This is nothing but dreaming.
Let us on, by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybillic splendor is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty to-night--
See!--it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming
And be sure it will lead us aright--
We surely may trust to a gleaming
That cannot but guide us aright
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom--
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista--
But were stopped by the door of a tomb--
By the door of a legended tomb:--
And I said--"What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied--"Ulalume--Ulalume!--
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere--
As the leaves that were withering and sere--
And I cried--"It was surely October,
On this very night of last year,
That I journeyed--I journeyed down here!--
That I brought a dread burden down here--
On this night, of all nights in the year,
Ah; what demon hath tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber--
This misty mid region of Weir:--
Well I know, now this dank tarn of Auber--
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

Said we, then--the two, then--"Ah, can it
Have been that the woodlandish ghouls--
The pitiful, the merciful ghouls,
To bar up our way and to ban it
From the secret that lies in these wolds--
From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds--
Have drawn up the spectre of a planet
From the limbo of lunary souls--
This sinfully scintillant planet
From the Hell of the planetary souls?"

Edgar Allan Poe

[quasimodo1]

(Perhaps no exceeding the mystic beauty of Ulalume, still a unique and intense view of this subject " Love Is A Parallax" by Sylvia Plath
'Perspective betrays with its dichotomy:
train tracks always meet, not here, but only
in the impossible mind's eye;
horizons beat a retreat as we embark
on sophist seas to overtake that mark
where wave pretends to drench real sky.'

'Well then, if we agree, it is not odd
that one man's devil is another's god
or that the solar spectrum is
a multitude of shaded grays; suspense
on the quicksands of ambivalence
is our life's whole nemesis.

......

[calupmoney81]

If only I could handle this love I have
Id give it to you
If only I owend the world
Id give It to you
If only I had money
Id give it to you
If only you loved me
Id love you

"I would not call it the best but I wrote it does that make it the worst??"

[Bakiryu]

To Annabel Lee: Ulalume--A Ballad

This has always been one of my favorite poems!

[quasimodo1]

To Bakiryu: Yea, the ballad...Ulalume by Edgar Allen Poe just resonates better with every re-read, don't you think. Much better than the poems everybody associates with Poe. I'll have to look up the poet you posted, can't say i remember much about him. quasimodo1

[Bakiryu]

eh, what poet? *looks around* The one in my sig?

[stephofthenight]

Sonnet 145 Those lips that Love's own hand did make

Those lips that Love's own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'
To me that languish'd for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
'I hate' she alter'd with an end,
That follow'd it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away;
'I hate' from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying 'not you.'

[quasimodo1]

To Stepofthenight: Use of Shakespeare is like bringing out the best wine when the wedding party is almost over. quasimodo1

Vitam Impendere Amori by Guillaume Apollinaire
(Vitam Impendere Amori: To Threaten Life for Love)





Love is dead within your arms
Do you remember his encounter

He’s dead you restore the charms

He returns at your encounter



Another spring of springs gone past

I think of all its tenderness

Farewell season done at last

You’ll return as tenderly

[Tabula_Rasa]

1.Love's Philosophy - by Percy Bysshe Shelly
2.Desire - by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
3.I Gave Myself To Him - by Emily Dickinson
4.We'll go no more a-roving - by Lord Byron
5.The Clod and the Pebble - by William Blake

...etc.

[quasimodo1]

Corinne's Last Love Song

I

HOW beautiful, how beautiful you streamed upon my sight,
In glory and in grandeur, as a gorgeous sunset-light!
How softly, soul-subduing, fell your words upon mine ear,
Like low aerial music when some angel hovers near!
What tremulous, faint ecstasy to clasp your hand in mine,
Till the darkness fell upon me of a glory too divine!
The air around grew languid with our intermingled breath,
And in your beauty's shadow I sank motionless as death.
I saw you not, I heard not, for a mist was on my brain--
I only felt that life could give no joy like that again.

II

And this was Love, I knew it not, but blindly floated on,
And now I'm on the ocean waste, dark, desolate, alone;
The waves are raging round me--I'm reckless where they guide;
No hope is left to right me, no strength to stem the tide.
As a leaf along the torrent, a cloud across the sky,
As dust upon the whirlwind, so my life is drifting by.
The dream that drank the meteor's light--the form from Heav'n has flown--
The vision and the glory, they are passing--they are gone.
Oh! love is frantic agony, and life one throb of pain;
Yet I would bear its darkest woes to dream that dream again.

Jane Francesca Lady Wilde... also Irish nationalist, poet and editor.