Love poems: six classics and twelve short new poems for him and for her

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,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Best for: a card that says "you are more than any comparison". The final couplet works on its own.

Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments; love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove.O no, it is an ever-fixed markThat looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wand'ring barkWhose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle's compass come.Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom:If this be error and upon me proved,I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Best for: weddings and long marriages; a classic wedding reading.

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 sightFor the ends of being and ideal grace.I love thee to the level of every day’sMost quiet need, by sun and candle-light.I love thee freely, as men strive for right;I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.I love thee with the passion put to useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.

Best for: a deep, serious declaration; works for him or for her.

O my Luve is like a red, red roseThat’s newly sprung in June;O my Luve is like the melodyThat’s sweetly played in tune.So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,So deep in luve am I;And I will luve thee still, my dear,Till a’ the seas gang dry.Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;I will love thee still, my dear,While the sands o’ life shall run.And fare thee weel, my only luve!And fare thee weel awhile!And I will come again, my luve,Though it were ten thousand mile.

Best for: Burns Night as well as Valentine's Day, and for a partner far away (the last verse).

She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that’s best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes;Thus mellowed to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies.

Best for: a love poem for her. The full poem has three verses.

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,Enwrought with golden and silver light,The blue and the dim and the dark clothsOf night and light and the half light,I would spread the cloths under your feet:But I, being poor, have only my dreams;I have spread my dreams under your feet;Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Best for: a short card for him or her. First published in 1899 as "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven".

You bring me tea I never ask for,the colour that I like,and every cup says what you never do:I'm here. I'm staying. Drink.

You don't make speeches,you mend the gate,you leave the porch light onwhen I come home late.

You still get lost on the way to places,but never on the way to me.

I wear your coat to the shops on purpose.It smells of rain and you,and on the walk back I amtwo people walking, not one.

The kettle, the radio, your hair in a knot,you singing the wrong words on purpose.Of all the mornings I could have,I'd choose this one, with you, again.

Your notes in capitals: MILK. CALL MUM. LOVE YOU.I keep the last onelong after the milk is bought.

When you fall asleep mid-sentenceI finish it for you,quietly, the way you'd want it,and add: and he loved her.

Grey sky, grey street, grey Monday.Then you, in that yellow coat,and the whole forecast changes.

We have argued over maps and money,buried a dog, painted three kitchens.If love is a long walk,I'm glad of the company.

Not roses. Not the diamond in the window.The proof is the spare key,the side of the bed you leave for me,the way you say my name when I'm late.

First look, first laugh, first lie about my age,first flat, first fight, first night we didn't sleep.I'd write you every first againjust to get to this page.

Eleven hours and an ocean away,and still you are the first thing I readand the last thing I think.