The eNotes Blog Top Ten Love Poems for YourValentine

Top Ten Love Poems for YourValentine Its almost that time again. Valentines Day is coming up and youd like to do something a little more romantic for your beloved than the typical Hallmark greeting card.   Fortunately, we here  at are prepared to  be your very own Cyrano. Here are some of the best love poems ever penned. 1.  She Walks In Beauty by Lord Byron She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. 2.  XVII by Pablo Neruda I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. 3.  i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings i  carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and its you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder thats keeping the stars apart i  carry your heart(i carry it in my heart). 4.  From The Thief of Sleep by Rumi Suddenly the drunken sweetheart appeared out of my door. She drank a cup of ruby wine and sat by my side. Seeing and holding the lockets of her hair My face became all eyes, and my eyes all hands. 5.  Gloire de Dijon by D.H. Lawrence When  she rises in the morning I linger to watch her;She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the windowAnd the sunbeams catch herGlistening white on the shoulders,While down her sides the mellowGolden shadow glows asShe stoops to the sponge, and her swung breastsSway like full-blownGloire de Dijon roses.She drips herself with water, and her shouldersGlisten as silver; they crumble upLike wet and falling roses, and I listenFor the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals.In the window full of sunlightConcentrates her golden shadowFold on fold, until it glows asMellow as the glory roses. 6.  From That Silent Evening by Galway Kinnell I will go back to that silent evening when we lay together and talked in low, silent voices, while outside slow lumps of soft snow fell, hushing as they got near the ground, with a fire in the room, in which centuries of tree went up in continuous ghost-giving-up, without a crackle, into morning light. 7.  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  but moor To-night in thee! 8.  Sudden Light by Dante Gabriel Rossetti I  have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door, The sweet keen smell, The sighing sound, the lights around the shore. You have been mine before,- How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallows soar Your neck turned so, Some veil did fall,- I knew it all of yore. Has this been thus before? And shall not thus times eddying flight Still with our lives our love restore In deaths despite, And day and night yield one delight once more? 9.  An Argument by Thomas More Ive oft been told by learned friars, That wishing and the crime are one, And Heaven punishes desires As much as if the deed were done. If wishing damns us, you and I Are damned to all our hearts content; Come, then, at least we may enjoy Some pleasure for our punishment! 10.  The Song of Solomon 7:10-13 I am my lovers, and he desires me. Come, my darling, let us go out into the fields and spend the night in villages. Let us wake early and go to the vineyards and see if the vine is in blossom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes will spray aroma and over our door will be precious fruit, new and old, which I have saved for you, my darling.