But in my opinion, his finest love poetry can be found in his plays. The greatest poet of all was Shakespeare, and his sonnets, addressed to loved ones both male and female, continue to enchant readers today.
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, That’s from Ben Jonson’s “Song: To Celia.” However, some readers-I’m one of them-prefer the second stanza of the poem, in which the poet describes sending flowers to his lover, suffering the sting of receiving them back again, and cherishing them all the more for having been in her presence:
Has any love poem ever begun more memorably than this? Love Poetry from the Age of Shakespeareīut for me, the finest love poems of all come from the English 16 th and 17 th centuries, the age of Shakespeare, of course, but not only him. Here is the first stanza of Dickinson’s “Wild nights”:ĭickinson’s first editor, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, thought the third stanza of this short poem was too racy for publication. But as we all know, sometimes the quietest people harbor the most fiery passions. During her life she was regarded as a quiet, eccentric spinster. What romances Emily Dickinson had, if any, and with whom, and with what type of person, are unknown to us. Sappho’s sexuality is much debated, and many other great poets have managed to keep their romantic lives hidden from history. Try that instead of mumbling about how you get nervous and tongue-tied in someone’s presence. I can feel that I have been changed, I feel that Shakes my body, paler I turn than grass is But here Sappho describes the overpowering effects of love on her own body: Perhaps the greatest ancient love poet was the female poet Sappho, whose work exists today only in gorgeous fragments, many of them praising women.
Some lovers are traditionalists, at least when it comes to literature, so when dealing with them, it’s best to go back to the beginning. No one did that more memorably than Lord Byron, whose “She Walks in Beauty” begins with this: If you’re not quite at the kiss-requesting stage, a better move is simply to praise your lover’s beauty. Here’s the second stanza of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Love’s Philosophy.” Has there ever been a more perfect way to request a kiss? Scholars of this literary school will tell you that the term “Romantic” refers to an intellectual style obsessed with inspiration and the sublime, rather than romantic love, but poetry devotees know the Romantics wrote some of the finest love poems in the language. Let’s start with the great Romantic poets themselves.
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