The top 15 romantic love poems written by famous poets.

 

 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

 

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 every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a 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.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 

 

 

 

“She walks in Beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies,

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes…”

- Lord Byron

 

 

 

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 languished 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 altered with an end,

That followed 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.”

- William Shakespeare

 

 

 

“And think not you can

Direct the course of love,

For love,

If it finds you worthy,

Directs your course.”

- Kahlil Gibran

 

 

 

She Walks In Beauty

 

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

 

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

 

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

- Lord Byron

 

 

“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;

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

Vain man, said she that dost in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalize.”

- Edmund Spenser

 

 

 

I held a Jewel in my fingers

 

I held a Jewel in my fingers –

And went to sleep –

The day was warm, and winds were prosy –

I said “‘Twill keep” –

 

I woke — and chid my honest fingers,

The Gem was gone –

And now, an Amethyst remembrance

Is all I own –

- Emily Dickinson

 

 

 

The Sick Rose

 

O Rose thou art sick.

The invisible worm.

That flies in the night

In the howling storm:

 

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

- William Blake

 

 

 

“The night has a thousand eyes,

And the day but one,

Yet the light of the bright world dies with the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,

And the heart but one;

Yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done.”

- Francis William Bourdillon

 

 

 

Silentium Amoris

 

As often-times the too resplendent sun

Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon

Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won

A single ballad from the nightingale,

So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,

And all my sweetest singing out of tune.

 

And as at dawn across the level mead

On wings impetuous some wind will come,

And with its too harsh kisses break the reed

Which was its only instrument of song,

So my too stormy passions work me wrong,

And for excess of Love my Love is dumb.

 

But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show

Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung;

Else it were better we should part, and go,

Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,

And I to nurse the barren memory

Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.

- Oscar Wilde

 

 

  

“The heart has it’s reasons,

whereof reason knows nothing.

The light, that lies

In woman’s eyes,

Has been my heart’s undoing.”

- Thomas Moore

 

 

 

 Love’s Secret

 

 Never seek to tell thy love, 

Love that never told can be;

For the gentle wind does move

Silently, invisibly.

 

I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart;

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,

Ah! she did depart!

 

Soon as she was gone from me,

A traveler came by,

Silently, invisibly

He took her with a sigh.

- William Blake

 

 

 

Of Beauty

 

 Let us use it while we may

Snatch those joys that haste away!

Earth her winter coat may cast,

And renew her beauty past:

But, our winter come, in vain

We solicit spring again;

And when our furrows snow shall cover,

Love may return but never lover.

- Sir Richard Fanshawe

 

 

 

Good God, what a night that was,

The bed was so soft, and how we clung,

Burning together, lying this way and that,

Our uncontrollable passions

Flowing through our mouths.

If I only could die that way,

I’d say goodbye to the business of living.

- Petronius Arbiter

 

 

  

A Vision upon the Fairy Queen

 

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,

Within that temple where the vestal flame

Was wont to burn; and, passing by that way,

To see that buried dust of living fame,

Whose tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept:

All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen;

At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept,

And, from thenceforth, those Graces were not seen:

For they this queen attended; in whose stead

Oblivion laid him down on Laura’s hearse:

Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed,

And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce:

Where Homer’s spright did tremble all for grief,

And cursed the access of that celestial thief!

- Sir Walter Raleigh

 

Also have a look through our Love Quotes section!