‘Summum Bonum’ by Robert Browning is a fairly straightforward and memorable poem about love and how it is far more important, and valuable than any beautiful summer day or shining gemstone.
All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem:
In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea:
‘In the Light of the Moon’ by Delmira Agustini explores the power of the moon. The speaker is drawn to the moon due to its white innocence and its power to soothe her soul.
The moon is pallid and sad, the moon is bloodless and cold.
I imagine the half-moon as a profile of the dead ...
And beyond the rekilled and praised pallor
Of Arab pearls, I prefer the rose in recent bud.
‘Jenny Kiss’d Me’ by Leigh Hunt is a powerful declaration of happiness in the face of the passage of time. A great deal of joy can be found in a single happy memory, the speaker suggests.
Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Published in 1849, ‘A Dream Within a Dream’ by Edgar Allan Poe examines the subtleties of time and perspective.
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
The poem, ‘Answer’ by Carol Ann Duffy gives an answer to an implied, rather enigmatic question: “Will I always love
If you were made of stone,
your kiss a fossil sealed up in your lips,
your eyes a sightless marble to my touch,
your grey hands pooling raindrops for the birds,
your long legs cold as rivers locked in ice,
if you were stone, if you were made of stone, yes, yes.
‘Fish Bouncing Kiss’ by Riyas Qurana describes a moment between lovers which contains hundreds of other memories retold beneath a tree.
Carol Ann Duffy, poet to ‘Hour’ never reveals the gender of either the narrator of the poem, nor their partner. Could
Love’s time’s beggar, but even a single hour,
bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.
We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers
or wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.
‘Humayun to Zobeida’ by Sarojini Naidu depicts a man who is upset with a woman who will not allow him to further their relationship.
‘I Love You’ by Ella Wheeler Wilcox describes the passionate, warm, and youthful love that exists between a speaker and her intended listener.
‘Lovesong’ by Ted Hughes is a six stanza poem that is separated into uneven sets of lines. The text is framed by two-line couplets that contain increasingly longs verses towards the third stanza.
‘Modern Love: VI’ by George Meredith describes the speaker’s anguish after realizing that the woman he loves has moved on to another man.
‘Quai de la Tournelle’ by John Dos Passos is a poem about a lost love and how the sights and sounds of the Seine River in Paris bring that love to mind.
‘Song: to Celia’ by Ben Jonson describes the deep love which exists between the speaker and his lover and how it transcends normal bounds.
William Wordsworth mentions the character “Lucy” many times throughout his poems, such as in Strange Fits of Passion Have I
Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.
‘Summer Morn in New Hampshire’ by Claude McKay describes how one speaker is unmoved by the brilliance of day as he is too consumed by his love for another.
‘The Kiss’ by Sara Teasdale is a passionate love poem. The piece describes how devoted a speaker is to her lover and how she’d never choose anyone or anything over him.
‘The Poet’s Dream’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the numerous songs that occur in Prometheus Unbound and that
‘The Willing Mistress’ by Aphra Behn is a playfully suggestive poem about a casual encounter between two lovers in a grove.
Most people wouldn’t think of the kind of man to embark on wildly flamboyant sexual affairs as being one to
Metaphysical poetry, such as To His Coy Mistress, is a subset of poetry popularized in the late 17th century which focused
‘What My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why’ is an Italian sonnet about being unable to recall what made one happy in the past.
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
‘Write’ by Carol Ann Duffy is a celebration of love and the power that writing has to depict and understand its emotional intensity.
Write that the sun bore down on me,
kissing and kissing, and my face
reddened, blackened, whitened to ash,
was blown away by the passionate wind
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