150 Timeless Romantic Quotes from Classic Poems
Table of Contents
Love and poetry have always been entwined, capturing the beauty, passion, and heartache of romance. From Shakespeare to Pablo Neruda, poets have immortalized love in verses that still resonate today. Here are 150 timeless romantic quotes from classic poems that celebrate the depth of love.
1-10: Eternal Love in Verse
- “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”
— William Shakespeare - “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.”
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning - “I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart),
I am never without it.”
— E.E. Cummings - “One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.”
— Sophocles - “My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.”
— Anne Bradstreet - “Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove.”
— Christopher Marlowe - “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”
— William Shakespeare - “If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.”
— Anne Bradstreet - “She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies.”
— Lord Byron - “The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of;
We feel it in a thousand things.”
— Blaise Pascal
11-20: Passion and Longing
- “At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.”
— Plato - “I wish I had done everything on earth with you.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald - “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”
— William Shakespeare - “The hours I spend with you, I look upon as a perfumed garden,
A dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it.”
— Sarah Bernhardt - “My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
— William Shakespeare - “Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be.”
— Robert Browning - “You were made perfectly to be loved,
And surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.”
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning - “My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight,
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.”
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning - “At night I dream that you and I are two plants
That grew together, roots entwined.”
— Pablo Neruda - “Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care.”
— William Blake
21-30: Devotion Beyond Time
- “My love is deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
— William Shakespeare - “Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun!”
— Robert Burns - “I am yours, don’t give myself back to me.”
— Rumi - “Whatever our souls are made of,
His and mine are the same.”
— Emily Brontë - “She’s all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.”
— John Donne - “Love is an endless mystery,
For it has nothing else to explain it.”
— Rabindranath Tagore - “With thee conversing, I forget all time.”
— John Milton - “I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness,
The astonishing light of your own being.”
— Hafiz - “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you,
I could walk through my garden forever.”
— Alfred Lord Tennyson - “You and I, it’s as though we have been taught to kiss in heaven
And sent down to earth together.”
— Pablo Neruda
31-40: Love’s Sweet Surrender
- “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”
— William Shakespeare - “Love is a spirit all compact of fire,
Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.”
— William Shakespeare - “We loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—”
— Edgar Allan Poe - “She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament.”
— William Wordsworth - “You and I, it’s as though we have been taught to kiss in heaven
And sent down to earth together.”
— Pablo Neruda - “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 Barrett Browning - “Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine.”
— Ben Jonson - “Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.”
— Dante Gabriel Rossetti - “If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our love would grow together
In sad or singing weather.”
— Algernon Charles Swinburne - “All love is sweet,
Given or returned.”
— Algernon Charles Swinburne
41-50: Love’s Deep Devotion
- “What I do and what I dream include thee,
As the wine must taste of its own grapes.”
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning - “The night is warm,
The stars are bright,
And love is near.”
— Langston Hughes - “I wish I had done everything on earth with you.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald - “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.”
— William Shakespeare - “Ah, love, let us be true
To one another!”
— Matthew Arnold - “Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come.”
— William Shakespeare - “So, we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.”
— Lord Byron - “My dear and only love, I pray
That little world of thee
Be governed by no other sway
But purest monarchy.”
— James Graham - “If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.”
— Anne Bradstreet - “I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you.”
— William Shakespeare
51-60: The Magic of Love
- “I am yours, don’t give myself back to me.”
— Rumi - “Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might,
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.”
— Alfred Lord Tennyson - “I saw thee smile—the sapphire’s blaze
Beside thee loses half its rays.”
— Lord Byron - “Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.”
— William Shakespeare - “My love is deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
— William Shakespeare - “And if you will, remember,
And if you will, forget.”
— Christina Rossetti - “You and I have found the secret of life,
Love and laughter and the dreams of delight.”
— Sara Teasdale - “My heart is ever at your service.”
— William Shakespeare - “You are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.”
— E.E. Cummings - “With thee conversing, I forget all time.”
— John Milton
61-70: Love’s Deep Yearning
- “Ah, how sweet it is to love!
Ah, how lovely it is to be loved!”
— Thomas Dekker - “Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?”
— William Shakespeare - “The stars are lit for you alone,
Each one a symbol of love’s own tone.”
— Sara Teasdale - “Your love has an unquiet way,
It sends my dreams to light of day.”
— Dante Gabriel Rossetti - “So dear I love him, that with him,
All deaths I could endure.”
— John Milton - “Like music on the water
Is thy sweet voice to me.”
— Lord Byron - “She is all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.”
— John Donne - “Love has no uttermost, as the stars have no number
And the sea no rest.”
— Eleanor Farjeon - “My heart is, and always will be, yours.”
— Jane Austen - “Love me little, love me long,
Is the burden of my song.”
— Robert Herrick
71-80: A Love That Endures
- “Let us love, let us live,
Let us make our glad days thrive.”
— Edmund Waller - “The moon is a silver pinhead vast,
That holds the heavens fast.”
— William Butler Yeats - “Love is enough: though the world be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining.”
— William Morris - “As long as we love,
We serve.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson - “But we loved with a love that was more than love,
I and my Annabel Lee.”
— Edgar Allan Poe - “A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness.”
— John Keats - “For nothing can be ill, if she be well.”
— William Shakespeare - “I give thee what cannot be given away,
I give my heart, and soul, and love to stay.”
— Christina Rossetti - “All my soul follows you, love encircles you
And I live in being yours.”
— Robert Browning - “And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies.”
— Christopher Marlowe
81-90: Love in its Purest Form
- “Love is enough, though the world be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining.”
— William Morris - “Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care.”
— William Blake - “To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.”
— David Viscott - “I am yours, don’t give myself back to me.”
— Rumi - “If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love’s sake only.”
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning - “You and I—
We have found the secret of life.”
— Sara Teasdale - “Oh, love! young love! bound in thy rosy band,
Let sage or cynic prattle as he will.”
— Thomas Moore - “I will not let thee go.
Ends the night, begins the morn.”
— Robert Bridges - “In her face excuse came profiting,
And my soul from every sin absolving.”
— Dante Alighieri - “Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night.”
— John Keats
91-100: A Love That Lasts Forever
- “Take me to thee, and thee to me—
No other care shall trouble us.”
— John Donne - “Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.”
— William Shakespeare - “The hours I spend with you I look upon as a perfumed garden,
A dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it.”
— Sarah Bernhardt - “And think not you can direct the course of love,
For love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”
— Kahlil Gibran - “Thou art my life, my love, my heart,
The very eyes of me.”
— Edgar Allan Poe - “For thee the morning dew is sweet,
And birds their early songs repeat.”
— William Cullen Bryant - “I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!”
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning - “If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.”
— Anne Bradstreet - “As long as we love each other,
All will be well in the end.”
— Victor Hugo - “Oh, let me kiss that hand!
Let me kiss that cheek!”
— William Shakespeare
101-110: Love’s Whispered Promises
- “Love hath no uttermost, as the stars have no number,
And the sea no rest.”
— Christina Rossetti - “And when thou art away, I sink,
For love cannot breathe when on the brink.”
— John Keats - “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
— William Shakespeare - “Love is the voice under all silences,
The hope which has no opposite in fear.”
— E.E. Cummings - “There is nothing holier in this life of ours
Than the first consciousness of love.”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - “Love is enough: though the world be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining.”
— William Morris - “For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.”
— John Donne - “Her every tone is music’s own,
Like those of morning birds.”
— Edgar Allan Poe - “Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes - “Her voice was like a fountain’s flowing tune,
As sweet, as pure, as musical.”
— Percy Bysshe Shelley
111-120: The Radiance of Love
- “But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love forever.”
— Robert Burns - “To know that I shall meet my love,
And that our souls will join above.”
— Alfred Lord Tennyson - “Love is like a fever which comes and goes quite independently of the will.”
— Stendhal - “In thy sweet presence always to abide,
My joy, my life, my rest, my love, my guide.”
— Edmund Spenser - “And now with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint.”
— William Wordsworth - “Love’s gift cannot be given,
It waits to be accepted.”
— Rabindranath Tagore - “You and I—
We are the keepers of dreams and light.”
— Sara Teasdale - “True love is rare, like a flower that blooms in winter.”
— Unknown - “I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affections,
And the truth of imagination.”
— John Keats - “When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.”
— Amy Lowell
121-130: The Soul’s Union
- “Oh, my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June.”
— Robert Burns - “Love gives itself; it is not bought.”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - “If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.”
— Lord Byron - “What is love? ‘Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter.”
— William Shakespeare - “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
— William Shakespeare - “And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon.”
— Edward Lear - “I am not thine, but mine,
If knowing this is love, love well and see.”
— Dante Gabriel Rossetti - “Love does not dominate;
It cultivates.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - “All mine is thine, none reserve have I,
If I have more, more give I to thee.”
— William Shakespeare - “And because I love this life,
I know I shall love death as well.”
— Rabindranath Tagore
131-140: Love That Transcends Time
- “You are my soul’s delight,
In your eyes shines my night.”
— Sara Teasdale - “Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.”
— Victor Hugo - “Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.”
— George Herbert - “I would rather spend one lifetime with you
Than face all the ages of this world alone.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien - “Where there is great love,
There are always miracles.”
— Willa Cather - “For I have loved you more dearly than speech can frame;
I have lived in your beauty like stars in the flame.”
— Algernon Charles Swinburne - “O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.”
— Robert Burns - “Love is the emblem of eternity;
It confounds all notions of time.”
— Madame de Staël - “Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be.”
— Robert Browning - “She is my soul’s delight;
My shining moon and starlit night.”
— Sara Teasdale
141-150: Love’s Endless Passion
- “Love is an endless mystery,
For it has nothing else to explain it.”
— Rabindranath Tagore - “I have loved you with an everlasting love,
And I shall never leave you.”
— Unknown - “Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove.”
— Christopher Marlowe - “There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart,
And no sweetness like love’s gentle art.”
— Jane Austen - “I loved her for that she was beautiful,
And that to me she seemed to be all Nature.”
— Lord Byron - “I am yours, do not give yourself back to me.”
— Rumi - “Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear,
Too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice,
But for those who love, time is eternity.”
— Henry Van Dyke - “The light of your love is a constant star;
It shines brighter than the heavens are far.”
— Unknown - “We loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee.”
— Edgar Allan Poe - “Oh, love! Thou art the sweetest thing that can exist;
In thee, life finds its truest bliss.”
— Unknown
Wrapping Up
These couplets and tercets from classic romantic poetry serve as timeless reminders of love’s beauty, strength, and enduring power. Whether in whispered confessions or written odes, love is the eternal muse. Let these verses speak to your heart and inspire your own journey of love.
