Loving someone deeply is a journey filled with emotions that words often struggle to capture.
I find myself drawn to the lyrical beauty of poems that encapsulate these feelings.
Here are 10 captivating poems resonate with the joys and challenges of love, offering solace and inspiration.
Let’s get right to it!
My favorite poem about loving someone for devoted women
#1 “The Beloved” by Louis Untermeyer
You are my holy city, my beloved;
Dark as Jerusalem and bright as Rome.
The gates of you are opened generously
To take the prodigal home.
What foreign towns I knew have never dimmed
The burning memory of your altar-fire;
My backward-hungering heart has always heard
In other songs, your choir.
I kiss your lips and dream of Lebanon!
You are my living Zion; and I rest
Here in the temple of your body’s grace,
Beneath the white wall of your breast.
“The Beloved” by Louis Untermeyer is a favorite for its powerful imagery and deep emotion.
It portrays love as a sacred journey, comparing it to places like Jerusalem and Rome.
The poem’s vivid lines about longing and fulfillment speak to the heart.
9 more poems about loving someone for devoted women
#2 “So Oft as I Her Beauty do Behold” by Edmund Spenser
So oft as I her beauty do behold,
And therewith do her cruelty compare,
I marvel of what substance was the mould,
The which her made at once so cruel fair,
Not earth, for her high thoughts more heavenly are;
Not water, for her love doth burn like fire;
Not air, for she is not so light or rare;
Not fire, for she doth freeze with faint desire.
Then needs another element inquire
Whereof she mote be made—that is, the sky;
For to the heaven her haughty looks aspire,
And eke her mind is pure immortal high.
Then, sith to heaven ye likened are the best,
Be like in mercy as in all the rest.
#3 “To a Mayflower” by William Edward Marshall
Hath the rude laugh of Boreas frighted thee,
My dainty one, that thou hast sought to hide
Thy loveliness from the young Spring, whose bride
Thou art, and, like a novice, ecstasy
Of life renounce, in this dark monast’ry
Of mossy cells? Nay, my pale beauty, chide
Me not, that I have mocked thy holy pride
With ardent praises of so rare modesty!
For I am come to claim thee, pretty flower,
As a sweet solace for my lady’s eyes,—
That thou—thy vigil past—all in a bower
Of love, may’st blush and bloom in glad surprise;
Happy, that, unawares, thy worth was known,
And all thy fragrance saved for Love alone.
#4 “Fair Is My Love” by Edmund Spenser
Fair is my love, when her fair golden hairs
With the loose wind ye waving chance to mark;
Fair, when the rose in her red cheeks appears;
Or in her eyes the fire of love does spark.
Fair, when her breast, like a rich-laden bark,
With precious merchandise she forth doth lay;
Fair, when that cloud of pride, which oft doth dark
Her goodly light, with smiles she drives away.
But fairest she, when so she doth display
The gate with pearls and rubies richly dight;
Through which her words so wise do make their way
To bear the message of her gentle sprite.
The rest be works of nature’s wonderment:
But this the work of heart’s astonishment.
#5 “To a Violet” by Eric Mackay Yeoman
O Violet! when I look on thy face,
And on the lofty loveliness that lies
In the high sweetness of thy fragile grace
And in the pale blue beauty of thy guise,
Briefly I mark thy charm and darling worth,
Thy shape and painting all so delicate;
And straightway new thoughts lead me from the earth,
And new-known wisdom holds me separate.
I look upon thy beauty’s mystery,
And judge thee fair,—and think no more of thee:
For, as I hold thee in my caring hand,
New things of heaven and earth I understand.
#6 “Nay, Chide Me Not that I am Jealous, Love” by H.
Nay, chide me not that I am jealous, love;
For in my doting fondness I am grown
A very miser of the beauties thrown
Profusely round thee from the gods above:
I ’m even jealous of the pliant glove
Embracing oft thy slight and fairy hand,
And of sly Zephyr, with his whisper bland,
Who steals a-wooing from the budding grove,
And dallies o’er thy cheek with soft caress,
And of the ray that trembles as it glows
Upon thy fresh lips’ loveliness;—
For that dear hand I would with mine enclose,
And lip and cheek I would were mine alone,
And mine the only heart that thou wouldst wish to own.
#7 “A Lover’s Sonnet” by C. E. Da Ponte
Hasten, soft wind, and when amid the gay
She moves with eyes of calm and tender light,
And forehead pale as foam-lit waves at night,
And voice harmonious as the warbling lay
Of birds that usher in the fragrant May,
Whisper, soft wind, that she remains the bright
Pure empress of this heart, whose sole delight
Is thus to muse on moments past away;
O, whisper this and tell how little I
Have known of joy since last I saw her face,
How the bright stars, lamps of yon changing sky,
Woods, streams, and every secret place,
Bear witness to my truth; yes, murmur this, then die
On those fair lips, bright opening buds of grace.
#8 “To a Lady” by Park Benjamin
’T is winter now,—but spring will blossom soon,
And flowers will lean to the embracing air,
And the young buds will vie with them to share
Each zephyr’s soft caress; and when the Moon
Bends her new silver bow, as if to fling
Her arrowy lustre through some vapor’s wing,
The streamlets will return the glance of night
From their pure, gliding mirrors, set by spring
Deep in rich frames of clustering chrysolite,
Instead of winter’s crumbled sparks of white.
So, dearest! shall our loves, though frozen now,
By cold unkindness, bloom like buds and flowers,
Like fountain’s flash, for Hope with smiling brow
Tells of a spring whose sweets shall all be ours!
#9 “Kissing Her Hair” by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Kissing her hair, I sat against her feet:
Wove and unwove it,—wound, and found it sweet:
Made fast therewith her hands, drew down her eyes,
Deep as deep flowers, and dreamy like dim skies;
With her own tresses bound, and found her fair,—
Kissing her hair.
Sleep were no sweeter than her face to me,—
Sleep of cold sea-bloom under the cold sea:
What pain could get between my face and hers?
What new sweet thing would Love not relish worse?
Unless, perhaps, white Death had kissed me there,—
Kissing her hair.
#10 “To an Autumn Rose” by Charles Fenno Hoffman
Tell her I love her,—love her for those eyes,
Now soft with feeling, radiant now with mirth,
Which, like a lake reflecting autumn skies,
Reveal two heavens here to us on earth,—
The one in which their soulful beauty lies,
And that wherein such soulfulness has birth.
Go to my lady, ere the season flies,
And the rude winter comes thy bloom to blast,—
Go! and with all of eloquence thou hast,
The burning story of my love discover;
And if the theme should fail, alas! to move her,
Tell her when youth’s gay budding time is past,
And summer’s gaudy flowering is over,
Like thee, my love will blossom to the last!