The 40 Most Romantic Lines in Poems

LET SHAKESPEARE PICK UP WHERE YOU LEFT OFF

You would hire an electrician to rewire your home or a plumber to fix your pipes, so maybe when it's time to write some incredibly moving poetry, you should leave that to the experts, too. There's nothing wrong with writing a nice poem for a birthday or anniversary, but if you want to impress your partner with words in a pinch, you can't go wrong with the classics. If you do, you can leave the inner turmoil, suffering, and toiling away late at night on second drafts to the poets, and reap all the benefits yourself.

These super-romantic lines are perfect for birthdays, anniversaries, or just to send in a text to remind someone that you think they deserve sweeter verse than you could write given an entire lifetime. Even if you don't have a partner, they're a solid reminder of what a good relationship should feel like. Either way, these are some of the most romantic lines of poetry ever written. And to further edify yourself, start by reading these 20 Poets You Haven't Read But Should!

1
"Sonnet 116" — William Shakespeare

"Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom."

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2
"Love One Another" — Khalil Gibran
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"Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."

For advice from the other side of the spectrum, check out 40 Relationship Tips That Are Actually Terrible.

3
"Every Day You Play" — Pablo Neruda

"I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees."

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4
"I Am Not Yours" — Sara Teasdale
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"Oh plunge me deep in love — put out my senses, leave me deaf and blind, swept by the tempest of your love, a taper in a rushing wind."

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5
"somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond" — e.e. cummings

"you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose"

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6
"Variations on the Word Sleep" — Margaret Atwood
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"I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary."

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7
"All I Ever Wanted" — Katie Ford
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"All I ever wanted was to sit by a fire with someone who wanted me in measure the same to my wanting. To want to make a fire with someone, with you, was all."

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8
"Alive Together" — Lisel Mueller

"This poem is endless, the odds against us are endless, our chances of being alive together statistically nonexistent; still we have made it"

If you feel like the odds are stacked against you, check out The 30 Secrets of Long Distance Relationships.

9
"Cascando" — Samuel Beckett
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"the hours after you are gone are so leaden they will always start dragging too soon"

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10
"All Through Eternity" — Rumi

"Beauty and Love are as body and soul. Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond."

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11
"The Great Fires" — Jack Gilbert
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"Love allows us to walk in the sweet music of our particular heart."

12
"Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" — W.B. Yeats

"I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

13
"Sonnets From the Portuguese 43" — Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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"I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."

14
"The Bait" — John Donne

"Come live with me, and be my love, and we will some new pleasures prove."

15
"Saying Your Names" — Richard Siken

"I do believe his mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me like stars."

16
"XVII" — Pablo Neruda
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"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."

17
"To My Dear and Loving Husband" — Anne Bradstreet
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"Then while we live, in love let's so persevere, That when we live no more, we may live ever."

18
"Song: To Celia" — Ben Jonson
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"Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine."

19
"Take, Oh, Take Those Lips Away" — John Fletcher

"Take, oh, take those lips away That so sweetly were forsworn And those eyes, like break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn; But my kisses bring again, Seals of love, though sealed in vain."

20
"To Earthward" — Robert Frost

"Love at the lips was touch as sweet as I could bear; And once that seemed too much; I lived on air"

21
"Bread and Music" — Conrad Aiken

"Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread; Now that I am without you, all is desolate; All that was once so beautiful is dead"

22
"Unending Love" – Rabindranath Tagore

"My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs, That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms, In life after life, in age after age, forever."

23
"You Are Jeff" — Richard Siken

"but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for"

24
"Love Is Not All" — Edna St. Vincent Millay

"It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution's power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would."

"I Have to Tell You" — Dorothea Grossman
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"I have to tell you, there are times when the sun strikes me like a gong, and I remember everything, even your ears."

26
[love is more thicker than forget] — e.e. cummings
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"love is less always than to win less never than alive less bigger than the least begin less littler than forgive it is most sane and sunly and more it cannot die than all the sky which only is higher than the sky"

27
"Poem to an Unnameable Man" — Dorothea Lasky
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"And I will not cry also, although you will expect me to. I was wiser too than you had expected for I knew all along you were mine"

28
"You, Therefore" — Reginald Shepherd

"trees and seas have flown away, I call it loving you"

29
"Cotton in the Air" — Derrick Brown

"You are cotton caught in the air. I am unfurling laces in your body."

30
"I Love You" — Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"Clasp me close in your warm young arms, while the pale stars shine above, and we'll live our whole young lives away in the joys of a living love."

31
"Poem for My Love" — June Jordan

"I am amazed by peace. It is this possibility of you asleep and breathing in the quiet air."

32
"The Sun Rising" — John Donne
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"Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time."

33
"Annabel Lee" — Edgar Allan Poe

"And we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee."

34
"The More Loving One" — W.H. Auden

"If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me."

35
"After Sappho" — Lee Ann Brown
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"So many people advised me against you. How glad I am we could not resist."

36
"Love's Philosophy" — Percy Bysshe Shelley

"And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea – What are all these kissings worth if thou kiss not me?"

37
"No Help For That" — Charles Bukowski
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"there is a place in the heart that will never be filled and we will wait and wait in that space."

38
"If You Were Coming in the Fall" — Emily Dickinson

"If certain, when this life was out, That yours and mine should be, I'd toss it yonder like a rind, And taste eternity."

39
"The Prophet" — Khalil Gibran
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"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."

40
"Celebration" — Mari Evans
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"I will bring you a whole person and you will bring me a whole person and we will have us twice as much of love and everything"

Looking for more words of wisdom about romance? Check out 50 Relationship Quotes to Reignite Your Love.

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