26 of the Most Beautiful Love Poems You’ll Ever Read
Have you been thinking about love poems? Love poems have a magical way of connecting people even when they feel at their lowest. Nothing is like listening to or reading a powerful love poem to cheer up your day or touch your heart by connecting to you through familiar experiences.
From the new to the old, take a loving journey through 26 of our top love poems to warm your heart and help you get into a loving mood. So, snuggle up and prepare to immerse yourself in a world of love through joy, sadness, and genuine connection.
1. “Come, And Be My Baby” by Maya Angelou
The highway is full of big cars
going nowhere fast
And folks is smoking anything that’ll burn
Some people wrap their lies around a cocktail glass
And you sit wondering
where you’re going to turn
I got it.
Come. And be my baby.
Some prophets say the world is gonna end tomorrow
But others say we’ve got a week or two
The paper is full of every kind of blooming horror
And you sit wondering
What you’re gonna do.
I got it.
Come. And be my baby.
Maya Angelou is one of American history’s most celebrated, loved, and acclaimed storytellers and poets. Her focus for “Come, And Be My Baby” revolves around love being there for you even in hard times and knowing you can make it through anything if that person is with you.
2. “To My Dear Loving Husband” by Anna Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye woman, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mine of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Anne Bradstreet was the first woman to be recognized as an accomplished New World poet, and her work has left a lasting impression through the centuries. She is still considered one of the most important early American poets, and her love poems show genuine love and a strong connection with her husband.
3. “Variations on the Word Love” by Margaret Atwood
This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It’s the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-shaped
vacancies on the page that look nothing like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
It
Margaret Atwood approaches love with a unique and creative perspective that shakes up the typical meaning of love, which shows how many different variations it can represent. From friendship to lovers and even sarcasm, this poem encompasses it all.
4. “Always for The First Time” by André Breton
There is a silk ladder unrolled across the ivy
There is
That leaning over the precipice
Of the hopeless fusion of your presence and absence
I have found the secret
Of loving you
Always for the first time
André Breton expresses his dream of love and what he is willing to wait for in his someday love. This beautiful poem shows how to blur the lines between dreams and real life.
5. “The Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
Sylvia Path expresses love as a wish or a dream for the future. Love is sometimes fleeting, and this fascinating poem uniquely expresses longing and heartbreak.
6. “Love Poem” by Tishani Doshi
Either way, we’ll have to learn
to bear the weight of the eventuality
that we will lose each other to something.
So why not begin now, while your head
rests like a perfect moon in my lap,
and the dogs on the beach are howling?
Tishani Doshi expresses thoughts on the sadness and fear people can experience with love. Some fear the loss of love so much they think of it too soon. With each word, she slowly, silently embeds the terror of possibly losing a loved one, and that may be their worst fear.
7. “ Your Hands” by Angelina Weld Grimké
I love your hands:
They are big hands, firm hands, gentle hands;
Hair grows on the back near the wrist….
I have seen the nails broken and stained
From Hard work.
And yet, when you touch me,
I grow small……and quiet……
……..And happy……..
If I might only grow small enough
To curl up into the hollow of your palm,
Your left palm,
Curl up, lie close and cling,
So that I might know myself always there,
……Even if you forgot.
Angelina Weld Grimké expresses the purest love a couple can feel. She loved every detail of her husband to the point of memorizing and loving his hands. She shows her true love and devotion for her husband by never wanting to be anywhere but by his side. When you are in love, even the mundane things seem unique, making them so wonderful.
8. “Let Me Not To The Marriage Of True Minds (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;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
William Shakespeare has so many beautiful and captivating sonnets. Still, this one is special because he speaks of how love should stay unchanging over time. A steady guide through life, just like the Noth Star for sailors, it guides them through long journeys as a constant guide.
9. “To Be In Love” by Gwendolyn Brooks
To be in love
Is to touch with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.
Gwendolyn Brooks does a beautiful job expressing what falling in love feels like and how being in love can change your life entirely.
10. “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns
‘O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune;
Robert Burns uses sweet metaphors for love, showing it is full of passion, joy, and beauty.
11. “Rondel of Merciless Beauty” by Geoffrey Chaucer
Upon my word, I tell you faithfully
Through life and after death you are my queen;
For with my death the whole truth shall be seen.
Your two great eyes will slay me suddenly;
Their beauty shakes me who was once serene;
Straight through my heart the wound is quick and keen.
Geoffery Chaucer is known throughout the world for his spectacular works of English literature. This poem has been translated from Middle English, but it still shows the utter heartbreak and endless love he felt for the love of his life, who broke his heart even as he still pledged his unrelenting devotion to her.
12. “Married Love” by Guan Daosheng
You and I
Have so much love,
That it
Burns like a fire,
In which we bake a lump of clay
Molded into a figure of you
And a figure of me.
Guan Daosheng compares married people’s love to clay as it hardens. This analogy is beautiful and symbolizes everlasting love and devotion in marriage.
13. “Love After Love” by Derek Walcott
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
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.
Derek Walcott expresses his feelings about healing after losing someone he loves. The discovery of self-love after heartbreak and how to return to loving yourself can be difficult, articulated eloquently in this poem.
14. “Heart, We Will Forget Him!” Emily Dickinson
Heart, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
Emily Dickinson shows how powerful self-love can be in this poem as her head tells her heart they will heal from this loss of love together, even though she knows it won’t be that simple.
15. “Love” by Carol Ann Duffy
You’re where I stand, hearing the sea, crazy
for the shore, seeing the moon ache and fret
for the earth. When morning comes, the sun, ardent,
covers the trees in gold, you walk
towards me,
out of the season, out of the light love reasons.
Carol Ann Duffy uses a monologue-style poem to describe the fluidity of love and how it can ebb and flow like the sea and make everything more glorious.
16. “Yours” by Daniel Hoffman
I am yours as the summer air at evening is
Possessed by the scent of linden blossoms,
As the snowcap gleams with light
Lent it by the brimming moon.
Without you I’d be an unleaded tree
Blasted in a bleakness with no Spring.
Daniel Hoffman expresses his need to be with his love and how being with her makes him whole. He uses beautiful metaphors to describe how he feels he would be nothing without her.
17. “for him” by Rupi Kaur
no,
it won’t
be love at
first sight when
we meet it’ll be love
at first remembrance
‘cause i’ve recognized you
in my mother’s eyes when she tells me,
marry the type of man you’d want to raise your son to be like.
Rupi Kaur describes how she will decide who she will marry and how she will know who he is based on her ideal man in this powerful poem.
18. “The Guest” by Anna Akhmatova
“Tell me how men kiss you,
Tell me how you kiss men.”
[…] oh, I know: his delight
Is the tense and passionate knowledge
That he needs nothing,
That I can refuse him nothing.
Anna Akhmatova describes an intense encounter with a lover in this poem. It is both beautiful and unnerving simultaneously because it clearly illustrates the intensity of the encounter.
19. “The Looking Glass” by Kamala Das
Oh yes, getting
A man to love is easy, but living
Without him afterwards may have to be
Faced.
Kamala Das describes heartbreak and difficulty in this simple, robust poem about the challenges of living with and being with one person.
20. “I Loved You” by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
I loved you, and I probably still do,
And for a while the feeling may remain…
But let my love no longer trouble you,
I do not wish to cause you any pain.
I loved you; and the hopelessness I knew,
The jealousy, the shyness—though in vain—
Made up a love so tender and so true
As may God grant you to be loved again.
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin describes his feelings and deviation about lost love and how he will always love her even without being with her anymore. He shows respect and wishes for her to be loved by another the way he loved her.
21. “On Love” by Kahlil Gibran
Love has no other desire but to fulfil 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 then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Kahlil Gibran describes how love can be filled with joy and pain, but it is worth the struggle for the purity of the passion in the relationship.
22. “Wild Nights—Wild Nights! (249)” 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 moor – Tonight –
In thee!
Another beautiful and lively poem from Emily Dickinson is about feelings of desire and lust that she may never be able to live but can only dream of. It is exciting but also sad because it may be her dreaming of being with a forbidden lover, maybe it’s a brother’s best friend or an off-limits love.
23. “Why I Love Thee?” by Sadakichi Hartmann
Why I love thee?
Ask why the seawind wanders,
Why the shore is aflush with the tide,
Why the moon through heaven meanders;
Like seafaring ships that ride
On a sullen, motionless deep;
Why the seabirds are fluttering the strand
Where the waves sing themselves to sleep
And starshine lives in the curves of the sand!
Sadakichi Hartmann describes why he loves his partner by comparing occurrences that need each other, such as a ship needing the sea to sail. One cannot exist without the other, as he feels he cannot live without his love for his partner.
24. “Camomile Tea” by Katherine Mansfield
We might be fifty, we might be five,
So snug, so compact, so wise are we!
Under the kitchen-table leg
My knee is pressing against his knee.
Our shutters are shut, the fire is low,
The tap is dripping peacefully;
The saucepan shadows on the wall
Are black and round and plain to see.
Katherine Mansfield describes comfortable, long-lasting love in this poem. “Chamomile Tea” is the perfect title to represent a couple who is happy just being together and needs nothing but the ease and comfort of each other.
25. “Your Feet” by Pablo Neruda
‘But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.’
Pablo Neruda shares a sweet poem about his love for his spouse through her feet’s journey to find him. He loves her from head to toe and is grateful she found him on her journey through life.
26. “Untitled” by Christopher Poindexter
I miss you even when you
are beside me.
I dream of your body
even when you are sleeping
in my arms.
The words I love you
could never be enough.
Christopher Poindexter shows how much he feels he needs his partner by saying he misses her even when he is with her because he loves her so much he can’t fully describe it. This sweet poem shows his true love and devotion to his partner.
Each of these poems describes love from different perspectives and experiences. They show passion, heartbreak, undying and indescribable feelings that come with the complexities of love. Poems are great for readers who love romance novels, romance manga, or any type of romance literature. They’re a great addition to your romance collection.
This article originally appeared on Wealth of Geeks.
