The Best Love Poems of All Time

[alexisj]

On Love

Kahlil Gibran
1923

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep,
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,
that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart,
and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say,
'God is in my heart,' but rather,
'I am in the heart of God.'
And think not you can direct the course of love,
for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night,
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

This poem may not be popular to some of you guys..but i do hope that you get to read this and get to understand the message it conveys. it's really lovely guys , trust me..!

________________

"When the hired gets tired, the tired gets fired."
from dress up games and hair games community, Phil

[qimissung]

It's beautiful.

[Stargazer86]

I really like The Highway Man by Alfred Noyes
so romantic!

[Saladin]

Ghazal 464

The fame of your virtuous deeds
Like my love have reached a peak
Joy is what everyone needs
Neither can fade, nor are weak

Wine, imagination will find
Is outside the realm of mind
No metaphor of any kind
Can transcend wine-speak

My purpose will come about
On the day that I find out
You granted without a doubt
The union that I seek

When with you, I stay
A year is just like a day
And the times you are away
A moment, a year-long streak

A vision of your face
In my dreams I trace
In my wakefulness I chase
My dreams to have a peek

Your grace on my heart bestow
As your love & kindness grow
My weakness will clearly show
Like a crescent, lean & meek

Hafiz, don't groan & blame
If for union you aim
Not for a day or a week;
Of separation you must reek

- Hafiz

[lady_litlover]

Ono Komachi's tankas are really beautiful for being so short

Yielding to a love
that recognizes no bounds,
I will go by night-
for the world will not censure
one who treads the path of dreams

but I think some of Thomas Wyatt's poems are equally beautiful... I can't decide

[Pryderi Agni]

Ono Komachi's tankas are really beautiful for being so short

Yielding to a love
that recognizes no bounds,
I will go by night-
for the world will not censure
one who treads the path of dreams

but I think some of Thomas Wyatt's poems are equally beautiful... I can't decide

Oh, my...another Ono no Komachi lover...

How about this, then?

Why do I want to dress me up without you around me?
I don't even feel like taking my comb made of box tree in the vanity case.

It's by Harima no Otome.

[sadparadise]

Just finished listening to a simple twist of fate. Now I am reading this as one of the greatest love poems. That is a simple twist of fate! My 8 year old loves this song. You should hear her sing the long notes on the words e.g straight and freight train. We play this song quite often.

I will add, My Love is a Red Red Rose. The Scottish Bard Rabbie Burns.

[optimisticnad]

there are so many that i love but at the moment the one that comes to mind and I hope we've not had it already is Derek Walcott's 'Love after Love', love thyself first huh....

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life

OH OH, damn you guys have got me started but i love this one by shelley, this and walcott's above is the only few poems that I know by memory.

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken;

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the belovèd's bed:
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

ok my last fave for tonight, i lvoe the first stanza, its amazing. by anne finch

Cou'd we stop the time that's flying
...Or recall it when 'tis past
Put far off the day of Dying
...Or make Youth forever last
To Love wou'd then be worth our cost.

But since we must loose those Graces
...Which at first your hearts have wonne
And you seek for in new Faces
...When our Spring of Life is done
It wou'd but urdge our ruine on.

Free as Nature's first intention
...Was to make us, I'll be found
Nor by subtle Man's invention
...Yield to be in Fetters bound
By one that walks a freer round.

Marriage does but slightly tye Men
...Whil'st close Pris'ners we remain
They the larger Slaves of Hymen
...Still are begging Love again
At the full length of all their chain.

[Heathcliff]

I really like The Highway Man by Alfred Noyes
so romantic!

-hi-fives loudly-

I was about to say that.

My year seven English teacher made me read it. Left me in tears in the middle of the school library.

[muel]

Watery eyes, what a pair they make,
Fascinating and yet demanding;
Distance kept to separate emotions,
Tangled in the seat of passions.

Restitution for the emancipation,
Liberation did come late;
Closest feelings fled incognito,
Watery eyes, my fondest REMEMBRANCE.

[milktea]

To those who said simple answer: Dante <-- Yes.

But... if it hasn't been mentioned already:

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus
Rumoresque senum severiorum
Omnes unius aestimemus assis.
Soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
Dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut nequis malus invidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

I'm pretty sure this is the sole inspiration for the numerous kiss poems like Tennyson's Love's latest hour is this, which is another great love poem.

[sweetdisorder]

Though Im young and I might not even know what love means I'd have to say the poem that admire the most would have to be " Love's Philosophy" by Percy Bysshe Shelly (1792-1822).
The last for lines always reply in my in mind over and over again:
"and the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea
What are all these kissings worth
If thou kiss not me"

[*Genie*]

Modestly(!), I suggest my own poem:

Thy love, at my glacial heart, has started a fire;
Burning my whole "Me" whilst melting the frost,
Made all the world, and ME above, be lost
In its new, mightily-conquered empire.

The lord by whom all my talent's hired,
And all my thoughts, for, I feel no ability,
Versus Plato's will, to oppose its authority;
So, let my soul, happily, by it be inspired.

Yet, thou dear me!, are not to be beheld;
For, folk just see the bright flames in dance,
At whose fever, all burn and fade, no chance,
Even for the poor match who first made it flared.

But no matter, what THEY say, view and hear;
To me, thy love and thou are yet so dear.


By: Genie Parker

Besides, I add this song by Ben Jonson and hope it is new here:

DRINK to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not wither'd be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe
And sent'st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself but thee!

[Uroboros1989]

I think that the best poem of love is John Donn's "Plea".
He subtly highlights the true tender nature of man and vicious nature of woman hahahahah
I'm joking....
But i love this poem very much!

[sinotsimon]

I'm sure someone will have already posted this, but here it is, an obvious choice and a beautiful poem.

EE Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)