1. The Great Fires - written by Jack Gilbert
From The Great Fires. Published in 1994. Read 24311 times on American Poems.

Love is apart from all things. 
Desire and excitement are nothing beside it. 
It is not the body that finds love. 
What leads us there is the body. 
What is not love provokes it. 
What is not love quenches it. 
Love lays hold of everything we know.... (Read full poem)

SOMETIMES with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn’d love; 
But now I think there is no unreturn’d love—the pay is certain, one way or another; 
(I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not return’d; 
Yet... (Read full poem)

3. Love is Enough - written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Read 31519 times on American Poems.

Love is enough. Let us not ask for gold. 
Wealth breeds false aims, and pride and selfishness; 
In those serene, Arcadian days of old 
Men gave no thought to princely homes and dress. 
The gods who dwelt on fair Olympia's height 
Lived only... (Read full poem)

When I died, love, when I died
my heart was broken in your care;
I never suffered love so fair
as now I suffer and abide
when I died, love, when I died.

When I died, love, when I died
I wearied in an endless maze
that men have walked for... (Read full poem)

5. Love Much - written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Read 1528 times on American Poems.

Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it.
Cast sweets into its cup whene’er you can.
No heart so hard, but love at last may win it.
Love is the great primæval cause of man.
All hate is foreign to the first great plan.

Love much. Your heart... (Read full poem)

And you love me

I love you.

You are, then, cold coward.

Aye; but, beloved,
When I strive to come to you,
Man's opinions, a thousand thickets,
My interwoven existence,
My life,
Caught in the stubble of the world
Like a tender veil --
This stays... (Read full poem)

7. To My Valentine - written by Ogden Nash
Read 6795 times on American Poems.

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And... (Read full poem)

up or down from the infinite C E N T E R
B R I M M I N G at the winking rim of time

the voice in my head said

LOVE IS THE DISTANCE
BETWEEN YOU AND WHAT YOU LOVE

WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE

           *

then I saw the parade of my loves

those... (Read full poem)

9. Mind Loves - written by Jenny Factor
Read 682 times on American Poems.

Who mind loved would not rather be loved body too.
Since all is all. Want eyes through everything. Like
comb through hair. Like water washing gold. Who
Mind loved would not rather love body to body since
all is more than map making map that... (Read full poem)

PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love, 
O bride! O wife! more resistless, more enduring than I can tell, the thought of you! 
Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born, 
The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation, 
I ascend—I... (Read full poem)

11. Touched by An Angel - written by Maya Angelou
Read 124878 times on American Poems.

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of... (Read full poem)

(Dante, Vita Nuova)


To all those driven berserk or humanized by love
this is offered, for I need help 
deciphering my dream.
When we love our lord is LOVE.

When I recall that at the fourth hour
of the night, watched by shining stars,
LOVE at last... (Read full poem)

13. you being in love... (XII) - written by e.e. cummings
Read 30266 times on American Poems.

you being in love
will tell who softly asks in love,

am i separated from your body smile brain hands merely
to become the jumping puppets of a dream?   oh i mean:
entirely having in my careful how
careful arms created this at length
inexcusable,... (Read full poem)

When beauty breaks and falls asunder
I feel no grief for it, but wonder.
When love, like a frail shell, lies broken,
I keep no chip of it for token.
I never had a man for friend
Who did not know that love must end.
I never had a girl for lover
Who... (Read full poem)

15. The Last Question - written by Dorothy Parker
From Sunset Gun. Published in 1928. Read 5251 times on American Poems.

New love, new love, where are you to lead me?
All along a narrow way that marks a crooked line.
How are you to slake me, and how are you to feed me?
With bitter yellow berries, and a sharp new wine.

New love, new love, shall I be forsaken?
One... (Read full poem)

My name is Judith, meaning
She Who Is Praised
I do not want to be called praised
I want to be called The Power of Love.

if Love means protect then whenever I do not
defend you
I cannot call my name Love.
if Love means rebirth then when I see... (Read full poem)

17. A Song. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 4456 times on American Poems.

1
COME, I will make the continent indissoluble; 
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon; 
I will make divine magnetic lands, 
        With the love of comrades, 
          With the life-long love of comrades.
  
2
I will... (Read full poem)

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth... (Read full poem)

19. To my Dear and Loving Husband - written by Anne Bradstreet
Read 3721 times on American Poems.

If ever two were one, then surely we. 
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee. 
If ever wife was happy in a man, 
Compare with me, ye women, if you can. 
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold 
Or all the riches that the East doth... (Read full poem)

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My... (Read full poem)

21. That I did always love - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 5516 times on American Poems.

That I did always love
I bring thee Proof
That till I loved
I never lived -- Enough --

That I shall love alway --
I argue thee
That love is life --
And life hath Immortality --

This -- dost thou doubt -- Sweet --
Then have I
Nothing to show
But... (Read full poem)

That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love;
It is enough, the freight should be
Proportioned to the groove.(Read full poem)

23. Pictures in the Smoke - written by Dorothy Parker
From Enough Rope. Published in 1926. Read 2396 times on American Poems.

Oh, gallant was the first love, and glittering and fine;
The second love was water, in a clear white cup;
The third love was his, and the fourth was mine;
And after that, I always get them all mixed up.(Read full poem)

My own dear love, he is strong and bold
And he cares not what comes after.
His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,
And his eyes are lit with laughter.
He is jubilant as a flag unfurled --
Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him.
My own dear love, he is... (Read full poem)

25. Let Love Go On - written by Carl Sandburg
From Smoke and Steel. Published in 1922. Read 3325 times on American Poems.

LET it go on; let the love of this hour be poured out till all the answers are made, the last dollar spent and the last blood gone.
  
Time runs with an ax and a hammer, time slides down the hallways with a pass-key and a master-key, and time gets... (Read full poem)