Love Poems on the Web

From Donald Hall to Shakespeare, Byron to Browning, a wide sampling of some of the best known love poetry is just a few keystrokes away.

Some poems fall within the traditional, comparing their loves to a red rose or summer day, while others are stunningly original—Emily Dickinson describes love as an "imperial thunderbolt/That scalps your naked soul," and John Donne uses the eccentric image of a flea to woo his woman.

And while Byron celebrates the innocence of his love, the impatient Andrew Marvell warns that should his "coy mistress" wait too much longer before surrendering to him, life may pass her by: "The grave 's a fine and private place,/ But none, I think, do there embrace."