Famous Love Poems

Classic Love Poems by Famous Poets

From the first prick of Cupid's arrow to the bitterness of heartbreak, poets throughout the ages have written on the mysteries of love. Their rhymes and allegories help us to better understand our emotions and sort the many ups and downs of love. Whether a simple crush or years of marriage, poetry throughout the centuries has helped express and illuminate the difficult sentiments of the heart. Turning to poetry can help us to put words to the passions and excitements that love inflames within us and to direct that fire to the forging and melding of two hearts together.

32 of the Best Famous Love Poems

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1. [i Carry Your Heart With Me(i Carry It In]

Edward Estlin Cummings (1894 - 1962) was a famous American Poet with an unusual style of writing. His name is frequently written in lowercase, e.e. cummings, and his poetry is probably best known for his unorthodox usage of both capitalization and punctuation, in which unexpected and seemingly misplaced punctuation sometimes interrupt sentences and even individual words.

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Top 100 6
- By E.E. 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 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)
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2. I Love You

Ella Wheeler was born in 1850 on a farm in Wisconsin, the youngest of four children. She wrote numerous poems starting when she was 7 years old. During her life, Wilcox received many rejection letters before a publisher gave her books of poetry a chance. Despite these rejections, Wilcox remained very optimistic. Her best-known poetry book was Poems of Passion (1883). In her later years she went to France during World War 1 to lecture to the soldiers, and assist with the Red Cross.

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Top 100 16
- By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
I love your lips when they’re wet with wine
And red with a wild desire;
I love your eyes when the lovelight lies
Lit with a passionate fire.

I love your lips when they’re wet with wine
And red with a wild desire;
I love your eyes when the lovelight lies
Lit with a passionate fire.
I love your arms when the warm white flesh
Touches mine in a fond embrace;
I love your hair when the strands enmesh
Your kisses against my face.

Not for me the cold, calm kiss
Of a virgin’s bloodless love;
Not for me the saint’s white bliss,
Nor the heart of a spotless dove.
But give me the love that so freely gives
And laughs at the whole world’s blame,
With your body so young and warm in my arms,
It sets my poor heart aflame.

So kiss me sweet with your warm wet mouth,
Still fragrant with ruby wine,
And say with a fervor born of the South
That your body and soul are mine.
Clasp me close in your warm young arms,
While the pale stars shine above,
And we’ll live our whole young lives away
In the joys of a living love.
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I love "I Love You" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. She tells it as it is when young hearts are lit with hearts on fire in the midst of desire. Love is meant to be happy and carefree. Heaven knows in...

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3. If You Forget Me

This poem was written while Pablo Neruda was in exile from Chile, during which time he was also having an affair with Matilde Urrutia, the woman who would become his third wife. It is presumed the poem was written with Matilde in mind, perhaps while she was in his presence. This poem shows how when an individual consumes your thoughts, everything you see, hear, touch, or experience reminds you of that person. It also shows that love can only last when a relationship is cared for and not ignored. As soon as one person does not see it as important, the relationship begins to wither.

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Top 100 15
- By Pablo Neruda
I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
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Once during the elective courses I teach - visualisation of poems by different poets- one of my students made a video artwork with her own drawings, illustrating this poem. It is one of the...

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4. How Do I Love Thee?

"How Do I Love Thee?" is one of the poems that make up the forty-four poems of Sonnets from the Portuguese. They were written while she was still courting her future husband, Mr. Browning, between 1845 and 1846. She writes that the love she has for him is everlasting and consumes every part of her.

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Top 100 30
- 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.

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 candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love 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.
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On August 25, 2017, the love of my life and I had been chatting while he shaved. I walked away, and I was gone 12 minutes. Sometime in those stupid 12 minutes he dropped to his knees and died...

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5. One Hundred Love Sonnets

Many of Pablo Neruda’s love poems helped him get known as an important Chilean poet. In this poem, he can’t fully explain his love, but he feels it deeply. It’s not one of show. Instead, it’s a love that’s simple and humble, a love that sees the beauty hidden within a person. The repetition of “I love you” brings attention to the poet’s desire to convey his feelings for the subject of this poem.

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Top 100 61
- By Pablo Neruda
I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.
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This poem touched my heart in ways that I didn't even know was possible. I never thought I would be able to understand my own heart as well as I do now. This poem completely captures the way...

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6. When I Die I Want Your Hands On My Eyes

In this poem, the speaker talks about wanting his spouse to remember him after he passes, but he doesn’t want her to mourn his loss so much that she doesn’t continue living her life. Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet who lived from 1904-1973, and his first wife did not speak his native language of Spanish. This poem is made up of quatrains (four-line poems) and tercets (three-line poems).

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Top 100 56
- By Pablo Neruda
When I die I want your hands on my eyes:
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands
to pass their freshness over me one more time
to feel the smoothness that changed my destiny.

When I die I want your hands on my eyes:
I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands
to pass their freshness over me one more time
to feel the smoothness that changed my destiny.

I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep,
I want for your ears to go on hearing the wind,
for you to smell the sea that we loved together
and for you to go on walking the sand where we walked.

I want for what I love to go on living
and as for you I loved you and sang you above everything,
for that, go on flowering, flowery one,

so that you reach all that my love orders for you,
so that my shadow passes through your hair,
so that they know by this the reason for my song.
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While I feel the love that he has for his beloved, I find the last sentence of the last stanza of the poem physically difficult to read. It just feels awkward. It is very touching and...

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7. Love's Language

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 - 1919) was an American author and poet. Her best-known work was Poems of Passion. Her most enduring work was "Solitude", which contains the lines: "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone". Her autobiography, The Worlds and I, was published in 1918, a year before her death.

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Top 100 70
- By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
How does Love speak?
In the faint flush upon the telltale cheek,
And in the pallor that succeeds it; by
The quivering lid of an averted eye--

How does Love speak?
In the faint flush upon the telltale cheek,
And in the pallor that succeeds it; by
The quivering lid of an averted eye--
The smile that proves the parent to a sigh
Thus doth Love speak.

How does Love speak?
By the uneven heart-throbs, and the freak
Of bounding pulses that stand still and ache,
While new emotions, like strange barges, make
Along vein-channels their disturbing course;
Still as the dawn, and with the dawn's swift force--
Thus doth Love speak.

How does Love speak?
In the avoidance of that which we seek--
The sudden silence and reserve when near--
The eye that glistens with an unshed tear--
The joy that seems the counterpart of fear,
As the alarmed heart leaps in the breast,
And knows, and names, and greets its godlike guest--
Thus doth Love speak.

How does Love speak?
In the proud spirit suddenly grown meek--
The haughty heart grown humble; in the tender
And unnamed light that floods the world with splendor;
In the resemblance which the fond eyes trace
In all fair things to one beloved face;
In the shy touch of hands that thrill and tremble;
In looks and lips that can no more dissemble--
Thus doth Love speak.

How does Love speak?
In the wild words that uttered seem so weak
They shrink ashamed in silence; in the fire
Glance strikes with glance, swift flashing high and higher,
Like lightnings that precede the mighty storm;
In the deep, soulful stillness; in the warm,
Impassioned tide that sweeps through throbbing veins,
Between the shores of keen delights and pains;
In the embrace where madness melts in bliss,
And in the convulsive rapture of a kiss--
Thus doth Love speak.
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Beautiful, with lots of emotion by way of description. I think of the French poet Edmond Rostand's character Cyrano de Bergerac and the Russian playwright Anton Chekov, two very unique...

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8. Don't Go Far Off, Not Even For A Day

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) writes this poem about the intense love between two people. A man is so strongly connected to his lover that he fears what will happen if she ever decides to leave. He doesn’t want her to be away from him, even for a day, for he doesn’t know how he will survive without her. Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poet, had three wives. This poem is made up of quatrains and tercets that contain descriptive language.

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Top 100 75
- By Pablo Neruda
Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?
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I really feel the same when she is away.

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9. I Am Not Yours

Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933) was an American Poet. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri. In this poem, she writes about a longing for a passionate love which will "leave me deaf and blind."

Famous Poem
- By Sara Teasdale
I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love - put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.
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10. Always Marry An April Girl

April is a month of tumultuous weather. Some days are dry, sunny, and pristine. Others are cold, stormy, and unenjoyable. Ogden Nash compares women to the month of April. They can be unpredictable. Sometimes they’re sweet and tender. Other times they’re cruel and angry, but in the end, they are loved for who they are.

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- By Ogden Nash
Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;

Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you.
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I was searching for a short poem that encapsulates the love I have for my wife. When I saw this, I knew. My wife's birthday is in April. The double meaning of marrying an April girl really...

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11. Somewhere I Have Never Travelled, Gladly Beyond

E.E. Cummings (1894-1962) was an American poet. He had his own unique writing style where he didn’t use spaces after commas or capital letters where appropriate. E.E. Cummings did not give his poems titles, so editors would generally take the first line of his poems to create titles. In this poem, the speaker is head-over-heels in love. His lover has complete control over him, and she constantly amazes him. Similes, personification, and alliteration can be found in this piece. It is made up of quatrains that do not follow a rhyme scheme.

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- By E.E. Cummings
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

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 easily will 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 colour 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
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This poem is the one that did it! I read this along with my class, in seventh grade, and was forever inspired by the way Cummings uses words to create this picture of love and roses. He uses...

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12. Love's Coming

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet who lived from 1850-1919. Her goal was to write pieces that lifted people’s spirits. In this poem, she writes of the great expectation of falling in love--that it will be an earth shattering moment, but the girl she writes about finds that she has fallen in love with someone who has always been by her side and is considered a close friend. That love has stood the test of time. This poem is made up of quatrains, four-line stanzas, that have a rhyme scheme of ABCB. The structure is also very intentional. The first two lines of each stanza show what the speaker hopes for when it comes to love, and the second two lines of each stanza reveal her reality.

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- By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
She had looked for his coming as warriors come,
With the clash of arms and the bugle's call;
But he came instead with a stealthy tread,
Which she did not hear at all.

She had looked for his coming as warriors come,
With the clash of arms and the bugle's call;
But he came instead with a stealthy tread,
Which she did not hear at all.

She had thought how his armor would blaze in the sun,
As he rode like a prince to claim his bride:
In the sweet dim light of the falling night
She found him at her side.

She had dreamed how the gaze of his strange, bold eye
Would wake her heart to a sudden glow:
She found in his face the familiar grace
Of a friend she used to know.

She had dreamed how his coming would stir her soul,
As the ocean is stirred by the wild storm's strife:
He brought her the balm of a heavenly calm,
And a peace which crowned her life.
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I had an old book of EWW poems when I was young that had belonged to my Grandmother, who was born in 1904, given to her by my Grandfather. Reading them brings back some memories. I didn't...

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13. I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

Pablo Neruda was born in 1904 in Chile. His real name was Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He wrote in green ink as a symbol of love and desire. Many of his poems have been translated from the original Spanish.

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- By Pablo Neruda
I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.
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Sounds like what every humble man goes through 'till he wins her heart or someone comes along and steals her away from him.

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14. Love Sonnet XI

In this sensual love poem, Pablo Neruda compares a hunting puma to desiring his lover. He is starving for her touch and love, and he is seeking after her. Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was a Chilean poet well-known for his passionate love poems. He was married three times, and his first wife did not speak Spanish.

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Top 100 77
- By Pablo Neruda
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.
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15. A Dream Girl

Carl Sandburg was an American poet who lived from 1878-1967. Due to the financial strain in his family, he was only able to attend school through 8th grade, but his family valued diligence and education. Later in life, he did get to attend Lombard College for a tuition-free education because he served in the Spanish-American War. In this poem, the speaker talks of a girl he will meet one day. He hopes she will come into his life, but he knows it might be just a dream.

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- By Carl Sandburg
You will come one day in a waver of love,
Tender as dew, impetuous as rain,
The tan of the sun will be on your skin,
The purr of the breeze in your murmuring speech,

You will come one day in a waver of love,
Tender as dew, impetuous as rain,
The tan of the sun will be on your skin,
The purr of the breeze in your murmuring speech,
You will pose with a hill-flower grace.

You will come, with your slim, expressive arms,
A poise of the head no sculptor has caught
And nuances spoken with shoulder and neck,
Your face in pass-and-repass of moods
As many as skies in delicate change
Of cloud and blue and flimmering sun.

Yet,
You may not come, O girl of a dream,
We may but pass as the world goes by
And take from a look of eyes into eyes,
A film of hope and a memoried day.
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16. A Valentine

This Valentine Poem from Edgar Allan Poe was originally titled "To Her Whose Name Is Written Below." The poem was for Frances Sargent Osgood and her name is within the poem.
To find the name, take the first letter of the first line, the second letter of the second line, the third letter of the third line, and so on until the end.

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- By Edgar Allan Poe
For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Loeda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Loeda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!—they hold a treasure
Divine—a talisman—an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure—
The words—the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot

Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets—as the name is a poet’s, too.
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto—Mendez Ferdinando—
Still form a synonym for Truth—Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.
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17. My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun

Poem about an ordinary relationship between lovers that is extraordinary. This poem is written in the form of a sonnet, which is a 14 line rhyming poem that has its origins in Italy. This poem makes fun of passionate love poetry in which the poet imagines that their lover is more spectacular than anything in the universe. Instead, the poet maintains that his relationship with his lover is as unique and magnificent as any other although his lover is an ordinary woman.

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- By William Shakespeare
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
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18. If Thou Must Love Me

If Thou Must Love Me is Sonnet 14 in "Sonnets from the Portuguese," a collection of 44 love poems from Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 – 1861) to her future husband Robert Browning. The couple married in 1846 and the collection was first published in 1850. Elizabeth was hesitant to publish the extremely personal collection, but Robert, a famous poet himself, urged her to publish them. The title suggesting that the sonnets were written by an unknown Portuguese was an attempt to give the couple some privacy.

Famous Poem
- By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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

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.

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19. Sylvia

Sir George Etherege, from England, lived from 1635-1692. His main focus was writing plays, many of which were comedies. "Sylvia" is written about the subject of a beautiful woman who makes people believe in love, but the narrator will not allow others to love her, for she is his.

Famous Poem
- By George Etherege
The Nymph that undoes me, is fair and unkind;
No less than a wonder by Nature designed.
She's the grief of my heart, the joy of my eye;
And the cause of a flame that never can die!

The Nymph that undoes me, is fair and unkind;
No less than a wonder by Nature designed.
She's the grief of my heart, the joy of my eye;
And the cause of a flame that never can die!

Her mouth, from whence wit still obligingly flows,
Has the beautiful blush, and the smell, of the rose.
Love and Destiny both attend on her will;
She wounds with a look; with a frown, she can kill!

The desperate Lover can hope no redress;
Where Beauty and Rigour are both in excess!
In Sylvia they meet; so unhappy am I!
Who sees her, must love; and who loves her, must die!
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This poem touched my heart so deeply I can't even explain. It has left me at a loss for words. There is no greater poem than one that will touch you so deeply that it leaves you speechless....

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20. Carnal Apple, Woman Filled, Burning Moon

Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet who lived from 1904-1973. He mostly wrote of politics and love. In this poem, he focuses on the latter. He writes of a passionate encounter with a woman he loves. He uses descriptive words and shares that love between two people has great moments but can also be filled with heartache. The sexual nature of his poems has caused controversy.

Famous Poem
- By Pablo Neruda
Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?

Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,
your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,
and a genital fire, transformed by delight,
slips through the narrow channels of blood
to precipitate a nocturnal carnation,
to be, and be nothing but light in the dark
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1 - 20 of 32

Famous Love Poems

Classic Love Poems by Famous Poets

32 of the Best Famous Love Poems

1. [i Carry Your Heart With Me(i Carry It In]

2. I Love You

3. If You Forget Me

4. How Do I Love Thee?

"How Do I Love Thee?" is one of the poems that make up the forty-four poems of Sonnets from the Portuguese. They were written while she was still courting her future husband, Mr. Browning, between 1845 and 1846. She writes that the love she has for him is everlasting and consumes every part of her.

5. One Hundred Love Sonnets

6. When I Die I Want Your Hands On My Eyes

7. Love's Language

8. Don't Go Far Off, Not Even For A Day

9. I Am Not Yours

Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933) was an American Poet. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri. In this poem, she writes about a longing for a passionate love which will "leave me deaf and blind."

10. Always Marry An April Girl

11. Somewhere I Have Never Travelled, Gladly Beyond

12. Love's Coming

13. I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

Pablo Neruda was born in 1904 in Chile. His real name was Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He wrote in green ink as a symbol of love and desire. Many of his poems have been translated from the original Spanish.

14. Love Sonnet XI

15. A Dream Girl

16. A Valentine

17. My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun

18. If Thou Must Love Me

19. Sylvia

Sir George Etherege, from England, lived from 1635-1692. His main focus was writing plays, many of which were comedies. "Sylvia" is written about the subject of a beautiful woman who makes people believe in love, but the narrator will not allow others to love her, for she is his.

20. Carnal Apple, Woman Filled, Burning Moon