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There are so many wonderful poems to choose from it is
difficult to know where to make a start! We have
therefore devised a Top 20 List of our favourite poems.
It was an extremely difficult task and obviously our
choice, in the end, was based on personal preferences!
We hope that the list will provide our readers with as
much pleasure that these famous verses have given to us.
A good knowledge of these famous verses will provide all
students and children with a good grounding of the
subject. Each poet has a different style of writing
making expert use of the English language. We have been
asked on many occasions which is our favourite poem.
Impossible! Writing styles, subject matter and even
childhood memories influence choices, so we gave up and
endeavoured to, at least, compile a list of our top
twenty famous and favourite poems! The first line of the
famous verse has been included to jog the memory! Please
refer to the Index for the Top 20 list! We can, however
give examples of some lovely verses from a selection of the most
popular love poems ever written:
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 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 wand'rest 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.
Because She Would Ask Me Why I
Loved Her a Love poem by Christopher Brennan
If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.
Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.
For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?.
Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.
"If thou must love me, let it
be for nought" a famous love poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile her look her way
Of speaking gently, for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of ease on such a day"
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee, and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheek dry,
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.
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