Theme · 419 poems

Love Poems

From Shakespeare's vows to Burns's red rose, these are the love poems people have pressed into letters, read at weddings, and copied into anniversary cards for centuries — alongside short modern verses ready for tonight's text message.

Love poetry covers more ground than any other kind, because love does: first crushes and fiftieth anniversaries, declarations and apologies, the beloved present and the beloved missed. The canon's pillars — Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 on love that 'alters not,' Browning counting the ways, Burns's rose newly sprung in June — have survived four centuries of weddings without wearing out.

Choosing one is simpler than it looks: read a few aloud and pick the poem that sounds like something you would actually say. Then add one plain sentence of your own underneath. The classic carries the eloquence; your sentence carries the proof.

Narrow it downFor Her For Him Missing You

LengthForm

When You Are Old

W. B. Yeats · 1893

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

12 lines · lyric

To My Dear and Loving Husband

Anne Bradstreet · 1678

If ever two were one, then surely we.If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.If ever wife was happy in a man,

12 lines · lyric

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

William Shakespeare · 1609

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,

14 lines · sonnet

Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

William Shakespeare · 1609

Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,

14 lines · sonnet

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning · 1850

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

14 lines · sonnet

Remember

Christina Rossetti · 1862

Remember me when I am gone away,Gone far away into the silent land;When you can no more hold me by the hand,

14 lines · sonnet

Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes

William Shakespeare · 1609

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyesI all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

14 lines · sonnet

Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold

William Shakespeare · 1609

That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,

14 lines · sonnet

A Red, Red Rose

Robert Burns · 1794

O my Luve is like a red, red roseThat's newly sprung in June;O my Luve is like the melody

16 lines · ballad

A Birthday

Christina Rossetti · 1861

My heart is like a singing birdWhose nest is in a water'd shoot;My heart is like an apple-tree

16 lines · lyric

She Walks in Beauty

Lord Byron · 1814

She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that's best of dark and bright

18 lines · lyric

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat

Edward Lear · 1871

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to seaIn a beautiful pea-green boat;They took some honey, and plenty of money

23 lines · nonsense

Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold · 1867

The sea is calm to-night.The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits; on the French coast, the light

37 lines · lyric

Annabel Lee

Edgar Allan Poe · 1849

It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may know

41 lines · ballad

Ode On A Grecian Urn

John Keats · 1820

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

50 lines · ode

Thou and I (opening couplet)

Rumi (Jalāl al-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī)

Happy the moment when we are seated in the Palace, thou and I,With two forms and with two figures but with one soul, thou and I.

2 lines · ghazal

Delight in Disorder

Robert Herrick · 1648

Delight in Disorder. Alfred Pollard, ed. 1898. The Hesperides & Noble Numbers.Delight in Disorder. Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

2 lines · lyric

I Shall Not Care

Sara Teasdale · 1915

Teasdale, Sara (1915), "I Shall Not Care" in Rivers to the Sea.Teasdale, Sara (1917), "I Shall Not Care" in Love Songs.

2 lines · lyric

Roses Are Red (Pizza Edition)

The QuillOak Editors

Roses are red, marinara is too;I ordered a large just to split it with you.Some people want sonnets, the moon, or the weather —

4 lines · roses are red

Roses Are Red (The Wifi Is Down)

The QuillOak Editors

Roses are red, the wifi is dead,the router's unplugged at the foot of the bed.No streaming, no scrolling, no feed to refresh —

4 lines · roses are red

Roses Are Red (Yes, It's Another One of These)

The QuillOak Editors

Roses are red, this format is tired,I had until midnight; a poem was required.But cliché or not, every word here is true:

4 lines · roses are red

Roses Are Red (For Her, Who Hates Mornings)

The QuillOak Editors

Roses are red, the kettle is on,you're grumpy and gorgeous each day before dawn;and I'd give up sunrises, gladly, forever,

4 lines · roses are red

Roses Are Red (But They Fade in a Day)

The QuillOak Editors

Roses are red, but they fade in a day;the chocolates get eaten, the cards thrown away.So here is the one gift that time won't undo:

4 lines · roses are red

Roses Are Red (For the One Who Steals the Blankets)

The QuillOak Editors

Roses are red, my feet are like ice,you've stolen the duvet — not once, dear, but twice;yet I'd shiver forever, frostbitten and blue,

4 lines · roses are red

Roses Are Red (For the Man Who Fixes Things)

The QuillOak Editors

Roses are red. The stair doesn't squeak,the door doesn't stick — you fixed both this week.Some men declare love with a speech or a song;

4 lines · roses are red

Roses Are Red (His Hand Finds Mine)

The QuillOak Editors

Roses are red, your hand finds my handin crowds, in the car, without thought, without plan;and that, more than roses, is how I stay sure:

4 lines · roses are red

Roses Are Red (You're Hopeless at Dancing)

The QuillOak Editors

Roses are red, you're hopeless at dancing,but somehow you're great at this whole romancing:you remember my coffee, my mother, my dreams —

4 lines · roses are red

Roses Are Red (I Would Still Pick You)

The QuillOak Editors

Roses are red, as they were at the start,when I practiced your name and rehearsed every part;the petals have changed, but the question stays true:

4 lines · roses are red

One More Year of We

The QuillOak Editors

One more year of "where's my keys?",of "taste this," and "come see" —one more year I'd trade for nothing:

4 lines · quatrain

L-O-V-E (an Acrostic)

The QuillOak Editors

Listening, even to the boring parts,Overlooking the socks on the floor,Voting for you, every day, in everything,

4 lines · acrostic

His Heart was darker than the starless night

Emily Dickinson

His Heart was darker than the starless nightFor that there is a mornBut in this black Receptacle

4 lines · lyric

Where Roses would not dare to go

Emily Dickinson

Where Roses would not dare to go,What Heart would risk the way —And so I send my Crimson Scouts

4 lines · lyric

Encouraged

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Because you love me I have much achieved,Had you despised me then I must have failed,But since I knew you trusted and believed,

4 lines · lyric

To Harriet

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ever as now with Love and Virtue's glowMay thy unwithering soul not cease to burn,Still may thine heart with those pure thoughts o'erflow

4 lines · lyric

Epitaph for William Nicol, High School, Edinburgh

Robert Burns

YE maggots, feed on Nicol’s brain, For few sic feasts you’ve gotten;And fix your claws in Nicol’s heart,

4 lines · lyric

Upon His Sister-in-law, Mistress Elizabethherrick

Robert Herrick

First, for effusions due unto the dead,My solemn vows have here accomplished;Next, how I love thee, that my grief must tell,

4 lines · lyric

Why Flowers Change Colour

Robert Herrick

These fresh beauties, we can prove,Once were virgins, sick of love,Turn'd to flowers: still in some,

4 lines · lyric

To My Mother

Robert Louis Stevenson

You too, my mother, read my rhymesFor love of unforgotten times,And you may chance to hear once more

4 lines · lyric

The Lily

William Blake

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,The humble sheep a threat'ning horn:While the Lily white shall in love delight,

4 lines · lyric

Thel's Motto

William Blake

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?Or wilt thou go ask the Mole:Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?

4 lines · lyric

After the Train

The QuillOak Editors

the train pulls awayand you wave until it bendsout of sight, then stand

5 lines · tanka

The Cedar Box

The QuillOak Editors

folding your lettersinto the cedar box, Ikeep what keeps, and still

5 lines · tanka

The Moon Has Left the Sky (the Midnight Poem)

Sappho

The moon has left the sky;Lost is the Pleiads' light;It is midnight

5 lines · lyric

By homely gift and hindered Words

Emily Dickinson

By homely gift and hindered WordsThe human heart is toldOf Nothing —

5 lines · lyric

Light As The Linnet On My Way I Start

Robert Louis Stevenson

LIGHT as the linnet on my way I start,For all my pack I bear a chartered heart.Forth on the world without a guide or chart,

5 lines · lyric

Text Me When You Land

The QuillOak Editors

You rarely say "I love you."You say "text me when you land."You say "I filled your tank this morning."

6 lines · free verse

One Girl (A Combination from Sappho)

Sappho

Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,A-top on the topmost twig, — which the pluckers forgot, somehow, —Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it till now.

6 lines · lyric

For largest Woman's Hearth I knew

Emily Dickinson

For largest Woman's Hearth I knew —'Tis little I can do —And yet the largest Woman's Heart

6 lines · lyric

Water, is taught by thirst

Emily Dickinson

Water, is taught by thirst.Land — by the Oceans passed.Transport — by throe —

6 lines · lyric

Give Me Women, Wine, and Snuff

John Keats

GIVE me women, wine, and snuffUntill I cry out "hold, enough!"You may do so sans objection

6 lines · lyric

On Fanny Godwin

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Her voice did quiver as we parted,Yet knew I not that heart was brokenFrom which it came, and I departed

6 lines · lyric

To-Morrow

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Where art thou, beloved To-morrow?When young and old, and strong and weak,Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow,

6 lines · lyric

To His Kinswoman, Mistress Susanna Herrick

Robert Herrick

When I consider, dearest, thou dost stayBut here awhile, to languish and decay;Like to these garden glories, which here be

6 lines · lyric

To Friends At Home

Robert Louis Stevenson

TO friends at home, the lone, the admired, the lostThe gracious old, the lovely young, to MayThe fair, December the beloved,

6 lines · lyric

Primeval my Love for the Woman I Love

Walt Whitman

PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love,O bride! O wife! more resistless, more enduring than I can tell, the thought of you!Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born,

6 lines · lyric

Two Cups

The QuillOak Editors

Marriage is two cupson one small shelf —not matching, never matching,

7 lines · free verse

What I Mean by Beautiful

The QuillOak Editors

You think it's the dress.It isn't the dress.It's you on a Tuesday,

7 lines · free verse

The Porch Light

The QuillOak Editors

The best part of my commuteis the last turn before our street,when the porch light you leave on

7 lines · free verse

Your Laugh Arrives First

The QuillOak Editors

Your laugh arrives before you do —down hallways, up stairwells,through the bad day I was having.

7 lines · free verse

The Lighthouse

The QuillOak Editors

The world gets loud. You don't.Plans collapse. You shrug, reroute.I have watched you assemble furniture,

7 lines · free verse

Common questions

What is the most famous love poem?

Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 ('Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?') and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'How Do I Love Thee?' trade the crown. Both are short enough to memorize, which is partly why they won.

What is a good short love poem for a card?

Burns's 'A Red, Red Rose' offers four singable stanzas; for something briefer, two lines of Sonnet 116 — 'Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks' — do the work of a page.

How do I make a borrowed love poem feel personal?

Quote one or two lines, then add a sentence of your own about why it made you think of them. Your plain sentence matters more than the famous quotation.