The Most Romantic Poets Ever
63Face it. You can't write poetry worth a damn. But you really, really want to tell your sweetie how you feel in a way guaranteed to make him or her swoon. What do you do?
Don't worry. There's no need to reinvent the wheel, here. Just check out some of the following poets of romantic verse. I'm sure you'll find something you like!
Starting with, believe it or not, the bible.
Song of Solomon: Check out these lines. And this is only part of the first chapter!
"If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents. I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots. Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold...A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts. My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi. Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes. Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green..."
Sappho: Popular belief says that Sappho, the most famous poet of ancient Greece, was a lesbian. Actually, that's not true - she wrote love poems to both men and women! From her Ode to Anactoria:
"That man seems to me peer of gods, who sits in thy presence, and hears close to him thy sweet speech and lovely laughter; that indeed makes my heart flutter in my bosom. For when I see thee but a little, I have no utterance left, my tongue is broken down, and straightway a subtle fire has run under my skin, with my eyes I have no sight, my ears ring, sweat pours down, and a trembling seizes all my body..."
Shakespeare's sonnets: Probably the best known author of romantic poetry. Here's one of the most famous, number 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 dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
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.
Rumi: My friend Tegan, er, strongly suggested that I add Sufi poet Rumi to the list. She has a point:
Blessed time! when we are sitting, I and thou,
With two forms and only one soul, I and thou.
Fragrance, song of birds, they quicken ev'rything
When we come into the garden, I and thou.
All the stars of heaven hurry to see us,
And we show them our own moon, I and thou-
I and thou without words, without I and thou-
In delight we are united, I and thou.
Sugar chew the heaven's parrots in that place
Where we're sitting, laughing sweetly, I and thou.
Strange that I and thou together in this nook
Are apart a thousand miles, see- I and thou.
One form in this dust, the other in that land.
Sweet eternal Paradise there... I and thou.
Lord Byron: Byron, with my personal favorite, "She Walks In Beauty Like the Night":
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 mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
I can't add to that. Happy poetry reading!
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I love Burns, but sometimes he's just a little too obscure for me!
Shakespeare is not the best known romantic poet or even close to being one of the best. It is Lord Byron who started the romantic movement and was the greatest influence on the literary romantic era. He is considered the greatest european romantic poet to ever live.
Shakespeare was a plagerist and not only stole lines but took the imagery of Francesco Petrarch and used it in his work, especially in Romeo and Juliet. He took Petrarch's Italian form of poetry and just turned it into an English form and worked from there. So Shakespeare is not the great you and many make him out to be.
If you are looking for the true romantic greats, I suggest you read the works of Byron, Keats, Shelley, Blake and some of the divine poets such as Rumi. There you will find your true journey.
you should all know that rumi was an iranian/persian
I knew that. He still writes divine love poems!
Mentions And Moments
by Miahbell a.k.a.?
In and out of time I find myself a part of you.
Thoughts that instead feel like dreams, set aside....glances.
To wear my sleeves inside out, as you notice only my heart...
my breath softens a kiss as you skip in notions of myself.
Only you, a state of being I, in purity...my mind
the ending of looking only to search the warmth and finding outside.
I escape with us united, a themed unbound.
Soundless, I sigh.
Just tshought I'd give you a real love poem. What do you think?
-Miahbell.
Terribly sorry, since you've all identified great Romantics (save Shakespeare, who, although he seems Romantic, is about 200 years Romanticism's senior) Wordsworth and Coleridge were effectively the foundation of the Romantic movement. They popularized it in Britain, where Romanticism was most fervent in poetry. It was later, in the early 1800s when Byron and Shelley again popularized Romanticism, thus known as the Second Generation Romantics. Byron and Shelley, however, weren't even pure Romantics; they mostly played off of the anti-authority moods of the ages. For real Romantic poetry, read Wordsworth's "The Prelude" and "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"
i find the three verses of romeo and juliet inspirational i've memorized them to tell to someone
alas that love whose view is muffled still,
should, without eyes, see pathways to his will
heres much to do with hate, but more with love
why, then, o brawling love, o loving hate
o anything, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
misshapen chaos of well seeming forms!
feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire SICK HEALTH
still waking sleep, that is not what it is!
this love feel I, that feel no love in this
anyways you guys can look up the rest of it... its perfect to say to someone you like but haven't gotten all too close to provided you don't creep her out lol
i think people are getting romantic mixed up with Romantic. The former is a theme the latter is a movement. The movement wasn't named after romance (though it contains much). and that crap above about shakespeare being a dye-in-the-wool plagiarist is so short-sighted it hurts. he didn't lift the italian form of sonnet at all, the italian and shakespearean are quite different, and not to mention the shakespearean being so much more difficult to pull off due to the rather limited rhyme scheme in english when compared to italian.
true shakespeare took and adapted lines, but say that to eliot, pound, larkin and every poet mentioned in your list.
and since when did byron start the romantic movement? did you read the books or are they just on your shelf?
You left out Pablo Neruda! I submit his Sonnet XVII, the most romantic poem ever written:
I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz or arrow of carnations that propagate fire: I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries hidden within itself the light of those flowers, and thanks to your love, darkly in my body lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
I am glad that someone mention PABLO NERUDA. but another amazing poet is Nizar Kabani. Both of these guys should be part of your stable. a woman to read that is sweet is SONIA SANCHEZ.
KISS YOUR LOVE By Brian John Evans.
Kiss your Love—forsake Duty—for night’s stallion bears down,
On the bright mares of sunlight that jostle and clown,
Fresh-eyed from lush waters--last colours their prize--
They have frolicked with tree witches all naked and wise :
Magicked they lift them—their long witchy hair—
Till witch-winds go-tumble witch-glistens in spray.
One scared witch withered to her dried-sphagnum lair,
Had schemed and composed her near human disdain,
But so dark is man’s dungeon--she burst from its shame!
She sang like six night birds--she rose as six moons!
Her mouse cast six shadows--six fat owls scoured their bones ;
How she ached for her sisters--till each found her in turn--
Become all things and no thing—our joy—and its pain;
In the heart of a poet, breathes that witch girl without name!
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jimmythejock Level 2 Commenter 4 years ago
you missed one very important poet probably the best of all time, Robert burns, "my love is like a red red rose.....jimmy lol maybe again i am scottish so i would say that . great hub