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

Welcome to yet another rich offering of famous love poetry from Tennyson, Walt Whitman, Herbert Trench, Sumod and others.

Far Far Away

by Sumod

When we're not together

memories of you

Things we've done

the way you smile so brightly

that helps me forget my worries

and celebrate our wonders.

When we're not together

my moods come into play more often

and make me yearn for the strength

I feel in you

the security I find in your eyes

When we're not together

I sometimes feel so very alone,

for myself and you ...

imagining you being without

my loving feelings

as I am without yours.

When we're not together ...

my best wishes still go with you always,

wishing to share in your exitements

wanting to comfort your hurts

needing to be reassured that

you're keeping warm and well

When we're not together...

I seem to spend my time

wishing that we were.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), who was appointed English poet laureate by Queen Victoria in 1850, was also sometimes referred to as an eccentric. He is often regarded as the embodiment and ethos of the Victorian age in poetry. His most famous works include The Charge of The Light Brigade, and In Memoriam amongst others.

It is the latter poem that is our main focus, for our prime example of famous love poetry. An elegy for his closest friend, Arthur Hallam who died in 1833, it took the poet 17 years to complete. Here is the most famous part (section 27,1850) of this monumental work:

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

(1809-1892)

In Memoriam A.H.H. Section 27 (1850)

I envy not in any moods

The captive void of noble rage,

The linnet* born within the cage,

*small bird

That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes

His license in the field of time,

Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,

To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest,

The heart that never plighted troth

But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;

Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

Do the last two lines ring a bell? They are probably the most quoted lines in famous love poetry!

Let us close this page on various famous love poetry with a selection each from two poets, Herbert Trench and Walt Whitman. Herbert Trench 1865-1923, was an Irish poet dramatist and educator. His famous love poetry is "She comes not when Noon is on the roses":

She Comes Not

by Herbert Trench

She comes not when Noon is on the roses--

Too bright is Day.

She comes not to the Soul till it reposes

From work and play.

But when Night is on the hills, and the great Voices

Roll in from Sea,

By starlight and candle-light and dreamlight

She comes to me.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was one of America's most famous poets, and is today regarded as one of the few truly great American men of letters. I have chosen his poem, "To A Stranger", for inclusion as an example of famous love poetry:

To a Stranger

by Walt Whitman

Passing stranger! you do not know

How longingly I look upon you,

You must be he I was seeking,

Or she I was seeking

(It comes to me as a dream)

I have somewhere surely

Lived a life of joy with you,

All is recall'd as we flit by each other,

Fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me,

Were a boy with me or a girl with me,

I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become

not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes,

face, flesh as we pass,

You take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you

when I sit alone or wake at night, alone

I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again

I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

Examples 7

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Lord Byron

Edgar Allan Poe

Emily Dickinson 1

Emily Dickinson 2

Shakespeare1

Shakespeare2

Shakespeare3

Shelley

Wordsworth

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