Famous Love Poetry has some of the most popular love poetry written.

There are more classic famous love poetry on this page. Enjoy these examples from Dante, Elizabeth Allen, Matthew Arnold and Ben Jonson.

La Vita Nuova

- Dante Alighieri

In that book which is

My memory . . .

On the first page

That is the chapter when

I first met you

Appear the words . . .

Here begins a new life

Often enough, the short verses are the best and most moving. Dante's offering here ranks with the greatest famous love poetry!

At Last

Elizabeth Akers Allen

At last, when all the summer shine

That warmed life's early hours is past,

Your loving fingers seek for mine

And hold them close—at last—at last!

Not oft the robin comes to build

Its nest upon the leafless bough

By autumn robbed, by winter chilled,—

But you, dear heart, you love me now.

Though there are shadows on my brow

And furrows on my cheek, in truth,—

The marks where Time's remorseless plough

Broke up the blooming sward of Youth,—

Though fled is every girlish grace

Might win or hold a lover's vow,

Despite my sad and faded face,

And darkened heart, you love me now!

I count no more my wasted tears;

They left no echo of their fall;

I mourn no more my lonesome years;

This blessed hour atones for all.

I fear not all that Time or Fate

May bring to burden heart or brow,—

Strong in the love that came so late,

Our souls shall keep it always now!

Elizabeth Akers Allen's triumphant tones, wrest from the jaws of despair affords us another great example of famous love poetry.

Longing

by Matthew Arnold (1822 1888)

Come to me in my dreams, and then

By day I shall be well again.

For then the night will more than pay

LThe hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,

A messenger from radiant climes,

And smile on thy new world, and be

As kind to others as to me.

Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,

Come now, and let me dream it truth.

And part my hair, and kiss my brow,

And say My love! why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then

By day I shall be well again.

For then the night will more than pay

The hopeless longing of the day.

Matthew Arnold's "Longing" matches the best of any famous love poetry we have met on our journey through the world of famous love poetry so far!

Ben Jonson (1572-1637) was a great 17th century dramatist, wit and poet. His famous love poetry, Song To Celia is a well known masterpiece:

Song: To Celia

Drink to me, only with thine eyes

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise

Doth ask a drink divine:

But might I of Jove's nectar sup

I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee

As giving it a hope that there

It could not withered be

But thou thereon didst only breath

And sent'st it back to me:

Since, when it grows and smells, I swear,

Not of itself but thee.

"Drink to me, only with thine eyes

And I will pledge with mine;"

These are verse that have passed into legend! Ben Jonson's "To Celia" is truly of the most famous love poetry.

The next offering of famous love poetry by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the so- called English Lake Poets is perhaps the longest famous love poetry I have included in this compedium so far, but is well worth the effort:

Love

By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I

Live o'er again that happy hour,

When midway on the mount I lay,

Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene

Had blended with the lights of eve:

And she was there, my hope, my joy,

My own dear Genevieve !

She leant against the arméd man,

The statue of the arméd knight:

She stood and listened to my lay,

Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,

My hope ! my joy ! my Genevieve !

She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,

I sang an old and moving story--

An old rude song, that suited well

That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace:

For well she know, I could not choose

But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore

Upon his shield a burning brand:

And that for ten long years he wooed

The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined : and ah !

The deep, the low, the pleading tone

With which I sang another's love,

Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes, and modest grace:

And she forgave me, that I gazed

Too fondly on her face !

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,

And that he crossed the mountain-woods,

Nor rested day nor night:

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade,

And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade,--

There came and looked him in the face

An angel beautiful and bright:

And that he knew it was a Fiend,

This miserable Knight !

And that unknowing what he did,

He leaped amid a murderous band,

And saved from outrage worse than death

The Lady of the Land !

And how she wept, and clasped his knees:

And how she tended him in vain--

And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain ;--

And that she nursed him in a cave:

And how his madness went away,

When on the yellow forest-leaves

A dying man he lay ;--

His dying words--but when I reached

That tenderest strain of all the ditty,

My faultering voice and pausing harp

Disturbed her soul with pity !

All impulses of soul and sense

Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve:

The music and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve:

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,

An undistinguishable throng,

And gentle wishes long subdued,

Subdued and cherished long !

She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love, and virgin-shame:

And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved--she stepped aside,

As conscious of my look she stepped--

The suddenly, with timorous eye

She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,

She pressed me with a meek embrace:

And bending back her head, looked up,

And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear,

And partly 'twas a bashful art,

That I might rather feel, than see,

The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,

And told her love with virgin pride:

And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

Coleridge's famous love poetry brings to an end this page on examples of famous love poetry. I do hope you found it of value, dear reader.

Examples 5

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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