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Famous Love Poems Part II

The Wedding Directory’s Top Ten Most Romantic Wedding Poems continued…

Love’s Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine? -

See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), English poet. In this lyrical poem, Shelley, considered one of the English language’s finest poets, questions the philosophy of love, which he considers the driving force behind all of life. Says Shelley, it is union with a mate that fulfils the purpose of existence.

Love Is

Love is…

Love is feeling cold in the back of vans
Love is a fanclub with only two fans
Love is walking holding paintstained hands

Love is.
Love is fish and chips on winter nights
Love is blankets full of strange delights
Love is when you don’t put out the light

Love is.
Love is the presents in Christmas shops
Love is when you’re feeling Top of the Pops
Love is what happens when the music stops

Love is…

Love is white panties lying all forlorn
Love is pink nightdresses still slightly warm
Love is when you have to leave at dawn

Love is.
Love is you and love is me
Love is prison and love is free
Love’s what’s there when you are away from me

Love is…

Adrian Henri (1932-2000), British poet and painter and founder of the poet-rock group, The Liverpool Scene. Part of the cultural phenomenon that swept Liverpool in the 1960s and 1970s, Henri portrayed popular culture in verse and took poetry to a wider audience. Love Is is a beautifully accessible poem; perfect for expressing a statement of love.

Sonnet #43: How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, – I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,
I shall but thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), prominent Victorian poet. In one of the most famous love stories of the literary world, Elizabeth married fellow poet Robert Browning, six years her junior, after a secret courtship in 1846. Robert encouraged her to publish this poem, although she felt it was too personal to be widely read.

Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast As Thou Art

Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art -
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -
No – yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever – or else swoon to death.

John Keats (1795-1821), English poet. His short life (Keats died at age 25), inspired later poets like Shelley and Keats. The poem personifies the human being as a star which watches the world from above. Says Keats, stars are steadfast in time and eternity, and he likens the eternity of love to such a brightly burning star.

Love Is More…

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is more sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

e.e. cummings (1894-1962), avant-garde American poet, author, playwright and painter. cummings is famous for presenting all his written works (including his signature) in lower case.  This poet is a great choice for the unconventional; his ideology of life was that love, passion and emotions are more important than reason and logic.