Poetry, with its rhythmic beauty and emotive power, provides a unique expression of love. Love poems capture feelings of adoration, longing, heartbreak, and every emotion that comes with human relationships. This collection of 65 love poems, with works from both classical and contemporary poets, encapsulates a multitude of perspectives and experiences of love.
From timeless classics like Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” to more modern pieces like Pablo Neruda’s “Sonnet XVII,” these poems speak to the many faces of love – passionate, tender, unrequited, enduring, and more. Each piece evokes a different emotion, yet all of them remind us of the universal human experience of love.
These poems give voice to feelings often left unsaid, providing comfort, solace, and an opportunity for introspection. They remind us that our experiences of love are not solitary, but shared. No matter how unique or personal our experiences may feel, someone, somewhere, has felt the same and found the words to express it.
Love is a timeless and universal theme that has inspired countless poets throughout history. Here are 53 beautiful love poems from various poets that have touched the hearts of many:
- “Sonnet 116” by William Shakespeare Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken…
- “How Do I Love Thee?” 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 every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
- “Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the ocean, The winds of heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine…
- “She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron 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… One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace…
- “I Carry Your Heart with Me” 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)…
- “How Do You Say Goodbye?” by Lang Leav How do you say goodbye to someone you can’t imagine living without? I didn’t say goodbye to you. I said I will love you until time tears us apart…
- “The Good-Morrow” by John Donne I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? Were we not wean’d till then? But suck’d on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den? ‘Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be…
- “Wild Nights – Wild Nights!” by Emily Dickinson Wild Nights – Wild Nights! Were I with thee Wild Nights should be Our luxury!
- “Love After Love” by Derek Walcott 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…
- “Love’s Philosophy” by John Keats The fountains mingle with the river, And the rivers with the ocean; The winds of heaven mix forever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In one another’s being mingle;— Why not I with thine?
- “If You Forget Me” by Pablo Neruda
- “I Love You” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
- “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns
- “Wild Nights! Wild Nights!” by Emily Dickinson
- “To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet
- “Valentine” by Carol Ann Duffy
- “When You Are Old” by W.B. Yeats
- “Love After Love” by Derek Walcott
- “Sonnets from the Portuguese” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- “The Good-Morrow” by John Donne
- “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” by Christopher Marlowe
- “Love’s Philosophy” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” by Sir Walter Raleigh
- “Love Sonnet XVII” by Pablo Neruda
- “Love One Another” by Khalil Gibran
- “Somewhere I Have Never Traveled, Gladly Beyond” by E.E. Cummings
- “Love’s Vicissitudes” by Emma Lazarus
- “Meeting at Night” by Robert Browning
- “Love Is Not All” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
- “The Indian Serenade” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- “Love’s Secret” by William Blake
- “Love Is More Thicker Than Forget” by e.e. cummings
- “Love and Friendship” by Emily Bronte
- “Since There’s No Help” by Michael Drayton
- “The Definition of Love” by Andrew Marvell
- “The Bargain” by Sir Philip Sidney
- “Echo” by Christina Rossetti
- “A Birthday” by Christina Rossetti
- “The Sun Rising” by John Donne
- “Love and Sleep” by Algernon Charles Swinburne
- “The Last Ride Together” by Robert Browning
- “Bright Star” by John Keats
- “Love’s Philosophy” by George Gordon Byron
- “The Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath
- “The Passionate Pilgrim” by William Shakespeare
- “Love Sonnet XI” by Pablo Neruda
- “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” by Richard Wilbur
- “If I Could Tell You” by W.H. Auden
- “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell
- “The Look” by Sara Teasdale
- “In the Orchard” by Muriel Stuart
- “The Madman” by Khalil Gibran
- “Love” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- “The Parting” by Michael Drayton
- “Love III” by George Herbert
- “Love and Sol
One may discover not only beautiful expressions of love but also a deeper understanding of this most complex and universal of human emotions. Whether you’re seeking to express your feelings to someone special or simply to bask in the beauty of these exquisite verses, these poems offer a timeless exploration of the many nuances of love.
