Valentine's Day Love Poems
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 an ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
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.
Elizabeth Barret Browning
PASSING stranger! you do not know
How longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking,
Or she I was seeking,
(It comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely
Lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other,
Fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me,
Were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become
Not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes,
Face, flesh, as we pass,
You take of my beard, breast, hands,
in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you
When I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
Walt Whitman
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!
Emily Dickinson