love and relationships poems

"La Belle Dame Sans Merci" – John Keats

"Alone and palely loitering." – Suggests abandonment and emotional emptiness.

"And her eyes were wild." – Implies mystery and danger in love.

"She looked at me as she did love." – Highlights the illusion of affection.

"I awoke and found me here on the cold hill’s side." – Symbolizes emotional devastation.

She Walks in Beauty" – Lord Byron

• "She walks in beauty, like the night." – Compares her beauty to nature.

• "One shade the more, one ray the less." – Suggests perfect balance in her appearance.

• "A mind at peace with all below." – Highlights inner beauty and serenity.

• "A heart whose love is innocent!" – Suggests purity and virtue.

"Sonnet 43" – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

• "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height." – Expresses limitless love.

• "I love thee freely, as men strive for Right." – Compares love to moral goodness.

• "I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life!" – Suggests love is all-encompassing.

• "I shall but love thee better after death." – Implies eternal devotion.

"The Manhunt" – Simon Armitage

• "Only then would he let me trace the frozen river which ran through his face." – Metaphor for emotional scars.

• "The parachute silk of his punctured lung." – Highlights fragility and trauma.

• "Then, and only then, did I come close." – Suggests the difficulty of healing.

• "The foetus of metal beneath his chest." – Implies deep emotional and physical wounds.

"Valentine" – Carol Ann Duff

• "Not a red rose or a satin heart." – Challenges conventional love symbols.

• "It will blind you with tears like a lover." – Suggests love can be painful.

• "Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips." – Implies intensity and lasting impact.

• "I am trying to be truthful." – Highlights honesty in love.

"A Complaint" – William Wordsworth

1. "There is a change—and I am poor;" – The speaker feels emotionally impoverished due to lost love.

2. "A fountain at my fond heart’s door, Whose only business was to flow;" – Love is compared to a fountain, once abundant and freely given.

3. "Now, for that consecrated fount... What have I? shall I dare to tell?" – The speaker mourns the loss of their once-sacred love.

4. "A comfortless and hidden well." – Love still exists but is now inaccessible and silent.