Love poems: ten classics and twenty short new poems for him and for her

If ever two were one, then surely we.If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.If ever wife was happy in a man,Compare with me, ye women, if you can.I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,Or all the riches that the East doth hold.My love is such that rivers cannot quench,Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.Thy love is such I can no way repay;The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Best for: a love poem for a husband, and for long marriages. Written by one of the first poets published in colonial America.

Wild nights! Wild nights!Were I with thee,Wild nights should beOur luxury!Futile the windsTo a heart in port, —Done with the compass,Done with the chart.Rowing in Eden!Ah! the sea!Might I but moorTo-night in thee!

Best for: a passionate note, or a partner far away. Modern editions print Dickinson's original dashes.

I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes;I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul as it leads.

Best for: a short card for him or for her; four lines that work at any age.

It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may knowBy the name of Annabel Lee;And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan to love and be loved by me.I was a child and she was a child,In this kingdom by the sea,But we loved with a love that was more than love—I and my Annabel Lee—With a love that the wingèd seraphs of HeavenCoveted her and me.

Best for: childhood sweethearts. The full poem turns to grief; the first two verses stand on their own.

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 anniversaries; one of the most requested wedding readings.

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, 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: a love poem for her, 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 make the coffee before I wake,too strong, the way I like it,and every cup says what you never do:I'm here. I'm staying. Drink.

You don't make speeches,you fix the screen door,you leave the porch light onwhen I get home late.

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

I wear your jacket to the store on purpose.It smells like rain and you,and on the walk back I amtwo people walking, not one.

Game on mute, my feet in your lap,you explaining a rule I will forget by halftime.If heaven is a long Sunday,I already live there.

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

Your notes in capitals: MILK. CALL MOM. 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.

Gray sky, gray street, gray Monday.Then you, in that yellow raincoat,and the whole forecast changes.

Two thousand miles of highway,one cassette, your bare feet on the dash.I don't remember the Grand Canyon.I remember you, looking at it.

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.

I said for better, for worse.I didn't know the betterwould be this ordinary Thursday,you laughing at the stove.

Your hair is going gray at the temples.I love it the way I lovethe oak in the yard:proof of every year it stayed.

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

Home isn't the house.It's the sound of your keys in the door.

Still you.After all this time, still you.

A thousand miles and two time zones away,you are still the first thing I readand the last thing I think.

One plus one was supposed to make two.With you it makesa whole life.

If I had it all to do over,I'd find you sooner.