It’s not easy picking a poem for Valentine’s Day. It can’t be too cheesy or too obtuse, but it needs to pack an emotional punch. Here are 7 classic poems that dig deep to evoke the many different ways a person can be your Valentine – covering the earliest sparks of romance, the comfort of long-term love, and even what passed for racy in 1891.
You’ll find several of them in the ‘love’ section of our new personalized poetry anthology, Poems For You. After five minutes of picking poems, typing a title and penning a personal intro, you’ll have a unique gift for any occasion.
Extract from Oh, No – Not E’en When First We Loved by Thomas Moore
Although my heart in earlier youth
Might kindle with more wild desire,
Believe me, it has gained in truth
Much more than it has lost in fire.
The flame now warms my inmost core,
That then but sparkled o’er my brow;
And, though I seem’d to love thee more,
Yet, oh! I love thee better now.
How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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 every day’s
Most 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 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 love thee better after death.
He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of 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.
Invitation to love (Extract) by Paul Laurence Dunbar
You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,
You are soft as the nesting dove.
Come to my heart and bring it to rest
As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.
A Decade by Amy Lowell
When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.
Wild nights – Wild nights! by Emily Dickinson
Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile – the winds –
To a heart in port –
Done with the compass –
Done with the chart!
Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the sea!
Might I moor – Tonight –
In thee!
The Awakening (extract) by James Weldon Johnson
I dreamed that you were a bee
That one day gaily flew along,
You came across the hedge to me,
And sang a soft, love-burdened song.
You brushed my petals with a kiss,
I woke to gladness with a start,
And yielded up to you in bliss
The treasured fragrance of my heart;
And then I knew
That I had waited there for you.
