Your Favorite Love/Romantic Poem?

noid's picture
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One of my favorite love poems is William Shakespeare's Sonnet #18. What's yours? Could be in any language. Another is a Filipino poem / tula by my former Philosophy teacher Dr. Eduardo Calasanz, but I lost his book. The title now escapes me, but will try to ask him for a copy via e-mail, and ask his permission to post it here. Smile

Sonnet 18

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.

–William Shakespeare
 

 


Pmel's picture

I like Love Poems with Wit(icism). :D

Two I can think of, right off the bat:

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"
By William Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak,--yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks, treads on the ground;
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

 

In this poem, Shakespeare is talking about love towards an imperfect woman which I think is dramatically realistic. The images just burns in my mind. xD

 

The Wit and the Beau
By Anne Kingsmill Finch

Strephon, whose Person ev'ry Grace
Was careful to adorn;
Thought, by the Beauties of his Face,
In Silvia's Love to find a place,
And wonder'd at her Scorn.
With Bows, and Smiles he did his Part;
But Oh! 'twas all in vain:
A Youth less Fine, a Youth of Art
Had talk'd himself into her Heart,
And wou'd not out again.

Strephon with change of Habits press'd,
And urg'd her to admire;
His Love alone the Other dress'd,
As Verse, or Prose became it best,
And mov'd her soft Desire.

This found, his courtship Strephon ends,
Or makes it to his Glass;
There, in himself now seeks amends,
Convinc'd, that where a Wit pretends,
A Beau is but an Ass.

 

((Okay... I have the tendency to go around the bush. So allow me to get to the point of this poem... Meaning I'll explain again))

Finch's poem is talking about a Jerk who tries to impress a Girl and wins in the end. As the reader, it makes me feel that I am the one observing their "first date" over dinner. And the way in which the Jerk is defined makes him an ass. So, that makes the guy Strephon, a jerk. :D

((If I'm confusing you, I completely understand. Just send me a note and I'll explain. T__T))

 

:)

i love e.e. cummings' Somewhere i've never travelled gladly beyond:

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

 

Another favorite is Pablo Neruda's Sonnet XVII... and Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines

 
 Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

I love poems generally, but I also love Fire and Ice and Stopping By Woods by Robert Frost. 

 

franzsorilla's picture

Puedo escribir los versos mas tristes esta noche

 i have its original version... read it in my comment down here....

<<FrAnZsOrIlLa>>

pinkytabor's picture

...love is not love

Sailing, scaling...

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds..."

ahhh! super duper tear jerker for a love junkie like me.

until now i still melt reading that...116?

"O no! it is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempest and is never shaken..."

 

Kahlil Gibran on Love

Kahlil Gibran on Love

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

*^_^*

 

Love Still Retains me in His Sovereignty... from Dante Alighieri's La Vita Nuova

Sì lungiamente m’ha tenuto Amore

E costumato a la sua segnoria,

Che sì com’elli m’era forte in pria,

Così mi sta soave ora nel core.

Però quando mi tolle sì ‘l valore

Che li spiriti par che fuggan via,

Allor sente la frale anima mia

Tanta dolcezza che ‘l viso ne smore,

Poi prende Amore in me tanta vertute

Che fa li miei spiriti gir parlando, 1

Ed escon for chiamando

La donna mia, per darmi più salute.

Questo m’avvene ovunque ella mi vede,

E sì è cosa umil, che nol si crede

 

(English Translation)

Love still retains me in his sovereignty,

to which I’ve been accustomed for so long

that, just as he before was harsh and strong,

he reigns now in my heart most tranquilly.

 

But when it robs me of my valiancy,

and all my spirits seem a fleeting throng,

in my frail soul I taste a bliss so strong

it makes my features pallid instantly;

 

and Love regains such power in me then,

he makes my every spirit fare about,

talking and calling out

 

my lady, so that I more grace obtain.

Where’er she sees me, this occurs to me,

yet none believes how humble she can be.

 

Ped Xing's picture

i agree with you!!  

i agree with you!!

 

pablo neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines

           

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

 

Write, for example,'The night is shattered

and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

 

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

 

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

 

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

 

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.

How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

 

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

 

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

 

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is shattered and she is not with me.

 

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

 

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

 

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

 

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

 

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.

Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

 

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

 

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

 

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

 

Pablo Neruda

i love Shakespeare's sonnets but this NEruda poem struck me.


Sonnet XVII
  
 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.

Pablo Neruda

i love you without knowing how or when or from where.... love this line

who said one should be genius to undersTAND love? i don't know how i love you all i know is that i do......(a hopelessly romantic lady...)

 

 

"hinahangin ang talulot na malaya, mula sa bulaklak na sinta hanggang sa matabang lupa.. siya ay ligaya, musa ng pagkadakila.."

dyeppri's picture

Tagalog po ang sa akin... Pag-ibig :by Jose Corazon De Jesus

Pag-ibig

Jose Corazon De Jesus

Isang aklat na maputi, ang isinusulat: luha!
kaya wala kang mabasa kahit isa mang talata;
kinabis at inisip mulang ating pagkabata;
Tumanda ka’t nagkauban, hindi mo pa naunawa.

Ang pag-ibig, isipin mo, pag inisip, nasa puso!
pag pinuso, nasa isip, kaya’t hindi mo makuro.
Lapitan mo nang matagal ang pagsuyo’y naglalaho –
layuan mo at kay lungko, nananaghaoy ang pagsuyo!

Ang pag-ibig ng dakila’y aayaw nang matagalan,
parang lintik kung gumuhit sa pisnig ng kadiliman.
Ang halik na ubos-tindi, minsan lamang ng halikan,
At ang ilog kung bumaha, tandaan mo’t minsan lamang!

Ang pag-ibig kapag duwag ay payapa’t walang agos,
walang talon, walang baha, walang luha, walang lunos.
Ang pag-ibig na matapang ay puso ang inaanod,
pati dangal, yama’t dunong nalulunod sa pag-irog!

Ang pag-ibig na buko pa’y nakikinig pa sa aral,
tandang di pa umiibig, nakikita pa ang ilaw,
ngunit kapag nag-alab na pati mundo’y nalimutan –
iyan, ganyan ang pag-ibig, damdamin mo’t puso lamang!

Kapag ika’y umurong sa sakuna’t sa panganib
ay talagang maliwanag at buo ang iyong isip;
takot pa ang pag-ibig mo, hindi ka pa umiibig;
pag umibig, pati hukay ay aariin mong langit!

Ang pag-ibig ay may mata, ang pag-ibig ay di bulag;
ang marunong na umibig, bawat sugat ay bulaklak
ang pag-ibig ay masakim at aayaw ng kakabyak;
o wala ng kahit ano, o ibigay mong lahat!

“Ako’y hindi nakasulat at ang Nanay nakabantay!”
Aasahan mo katoto ko, hindi ka pa minamahal!
Ngunit kapag sumulat na sa ibabaw man ng hukay;
minamahal ka na niya ng higit sa kanyang buhay!

Kayong mga kabataang pag-ibig ang ninanais,
kayong mga paruparong sa ilawan lumiligid,
kapag kayo’y umibig na, hahanapin ang panganib,
at ang mga pakpak ninyo’y masusunog sa pag-ibig.

............................................................................................................

"I wouldn't mind if you were nice to me once in a blue moon."

Fre3Man's picture

Lyric 57

nice choice. JCDJ is one of the expressive poets we have, i think. also there's jose garcia villa. here's his Lyric 57. i don't believe it is his seminal work. but i like it a lot. it seems like something i can/will/should say hehe

 

My most. My most. O my lost!
O my bright, my ineradicable ghost.
At whose bright coast God seeks
Shelter and is lost is lost. O
Coast of Brightness. O cause of
Grief. O rose of purest grief.
O thou in my breast so stark and
Holy-bright. O thou melancholy
Light. Me. Me. My own perfidy.
O my most my most, O the bright
The beautiful the terrible Accost.

 

"A freelance writer is an amateur who didn't quit."

franzsorilla's picture

this is my favorite because of its sadness

 "Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche"

Puedo escribir los versos mas tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: "La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos."

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como esta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oir la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche esta estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como esta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque este sea el ultimo dolor que ella me causa,
y estos sean los ultimos versos que yo le escribo.

- Pablo Neruda

<<FrAnZsOrIlLa>>

"Tonight I can write the saddest lines"

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write for example, "The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance."

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

- Pablo Neruda

rbolsqp's picture

Shakespeare Sonnet XCI

Some glory in their birth...
...
...
And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:
Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take
All this away and me most wretched make.

 

 

isangsakongtubig's picture

gusto ko to

 kay Neruda rin, gusto ko yung si Glen Close ang nagbabasa, im playing it kapag nalulungkot ako hehehe salamat sa Il Postino na compilation:

 

 

I Like For You To Be Still
by Pablo Neruda

I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not touch you
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
And it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth
As all things are filled with my soul
You emerge from the things
Filled with my soul
You are like my soul
A butterfly of dream
And you are like the word: Melancholy

I like for you to be still
And you seem far away
It sounds as though you are lamenting
A butterfly cooing like a dove
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not reach you
Let me come to be still in your silence
And let me talk to you with your silence
That is bright as a lamp
Simple, as a ring
You are like the night
With its stillness and constellations
Your silence is that of a star
As remote and candid

I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
Distant and full of sorrow
So you would've died
One word then, One smile is enough
And I'm happy;
Happy that it's not true

 

kung hindi ka babalik, araw araw na lang akong maghihintay

Ito naman ang pinakapaborito kong love poem

  

Come live with me and be my love 

By Christopher Marlowe (1564-93) 

Come live with me and be my love, 
And we will all the pleasures prove 
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, 
Woods or steepy mountain yields. 

And we will sit upon the rocks, 
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, 
By shallow rivers to whose falls 
Melodious birds sing madrigals. 

And I will make thee beds of roses 
And a thousand fragrant posies, 
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle 
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; 

A gown made of the finest wool 
Which from our pretty lambs we pull; 
Fair lined slippers for the cold, 
With buckles of th purest gold; 

A belt of straw and ivy buds, 
With coral clasps and amber studs: 
And if these pleasures may thee move, 
Come live with me and be my love. 

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing 
For thy delight each May morning: 
If these delights thy mind may move, 
Then live with me and be my love.

Ped Xing's picture

oscar wilde's poem

la bella dona mia mente.

dont know if i got it right. i'll just check it later.

alunsina's picture

neruda

kung romantic at romantic poem rin lang eh di na matapos tapos tumulo ang luha ko sa i can write the saddest lines ni neruda.

 

pero dahil me paltik ako, ilalagay ko na lang ay if you forget me ni neruda din. 

 

:P

 If You Forget Me
      
      I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

 

Pinoy Love Poem

nakabasa na ako ng maraming tula, kasali na dito ang mga gawa ni Pablo Neruda at mga gawa ni Teo Antonio.  Lahat sila nakakapag bulalas ng mga pinakamalalim na emosyon tungkol sa pag-ibig.

hindi nauubusan ng mga pananalita ang kahit sino kapag tinatalakay ang pag-ibig.  kahit taxi driver meron siyang mga naiisip na kataga para ipahiwatig ang pag-ibig niya.

sa opinyon ko, ang pag-ibig ay isang tula na pwedeng bigkasin kahit sa pinaka mababaw na linya tulad ng mga sinambulat ng bandang Yano:

"mahal ka ba niyang talaga?  mahal ka ba niyang talaga?"

in the realm of love, there may never be any good poetry.  only sincere ones. standards may go out the window.

Poetry may be a declaration of love.  Love is not confined to good poetry. 

 

 

Rhea Stone's picture

!

 

I love William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116:

 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within 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.

 

http://reyastone.blogspot.com/