Love is a feeling that can make anything feel great. It is the mover of souls and the fire of creativity. Some of the most famous poets have written some of the best love poems ever. And we decided to pick ten of them and bring them to you.
So here are the 8 best love poems ever written to stir up the love inside your heart and fill you up with the passion of affection. The poems in this list include:
- Wild Nights! by Emily Dickinson
- Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
- Some hundred Love Sonnets: XVII by Pablo Neruda
- When You Are Old by WB Yeats
- Love’s Philosophy by PB Shelley
- i carry your heart with me by e.e. Cummings
- How Do I Love Thee (Sonnet 43) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
Let’s get started with the first poem. There is not specified order to this list.
Wild Nights! by Emily Dickinson
Wild nights - Wild nights! Were I with thee Wild nights should be Our luxury! Futile - the winds - To a Heart in port - Done with the Compass - Done with the Chart! Rowing in Eden - Ah - the Sea! Might I but moor - tonight - In thee!
It is rare to find love poems by Emily Dickinson, but when you find one, it is bound to be brilliant. Dickinson was a recluse and spent most of her time alone. So most of her poems were build around profound emotions and feelings such as trauma, death, loneliness, strength, etc. She rarely wrote about love, perhaps because she rarely felt this emotion.
Wild Nights! Wild Nights! was quite a controversial poem when it was published as it stood out from the rest of the poems by the poetess. It was exciting, steamy, and full of love and passion. Definitely one of the best love poems.
Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 18 or “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” is one of William Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets and his most famous love sonnet. It is such a classic poem that it needs no introduction. Shakespeare at his best, tries to compare his love with all the things in nature and concludes that nothing can compare to his love.
Some Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII 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 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.
Pablo Neruda has written some of the most moving and touching love poems with deeper and more profound meanings. This poem, or should we say, sonnet, shows that. A beautiful poem with a brilliant way of expressing love, Neruda does not shy away from using complex metaphors and yet makes a poem that flows easily.
When You Are Old by WB Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
“When You Are Old” is not exactly a love poem, but it does talk about failed, one-sided love and regret. So, people who are going through that rough phase of life, this poem is for you. After all, one-sided love is also a form of love
Love’s Philosophy by PB 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 In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine?— See the mountains kiss high heaven And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth And the moonbeams kiss the sea: What is all this sweet work worth If thou kiss not me?
This a very beautiful and intimate love poem by P.B Shelly in which the poet uses beautiful metaphors to ask his love to get with him. It is one of those poems which feel very warm and expressive to read and share with your special one.
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)
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)
One of the classics, i carry your heart within me is an exemplary love poem. Written by E.E Cummings, this poem has acquired a cult status with its complex style, line breaks, and the peculiar use of brackets to indicate that the poem contains the heart of the person the poet is talking about.
How Do I Love Thee (Sonnet 43) 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. 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.
One of the best and most poetical ways of expressing your love to someone is by dedicating this poem to them. Browning has crafted each line of this poem in such a powerful way that you need to read it carefully to appreciate how well she is expressing her love.
Her idea of love surpasses this world, this realm, and it goes beyond what we can imagine and think. A beautifully expressing and powerful love poem!
So that was the list of the 8 best love poems ever written by famous poets. Keep reading poetry and expressing yourself.
While you are here, take a look at some of the best love poems for your wife!