Love is in the air. Valentine’s Day is coming and that means celebrating love with your very special person. Show your love with a Valentine’s Day gift of original, short poems about love or choose one of the many love poems published on Nana’s Corner.

How to Write Short Poems About Love

Have you tried writing short poems about love for the one you love? There isn’t a wrong way to write love poems, as long as your poem is original and expresses true feelings from your heart.

Some feelings you may want to express in your short poems about love are those you felt before you fell in love, those you are experiencing now, and the hope you have for your relationship. Create some metaphors or similes to describe your love – relate your love to something that has meaning for both of you.

The following 10 short poems about love may be able to  help you compose your own love poem. Just let your heart speak of the love you feel and what makes your relationship so special.

10 Short Poems About Love

I LOVE YOU

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I love your lips when they’re wet with wine
And red with a wild desire;
I love your eyes when the lovelight lies
Lit with a passionate fire.
I love your arms when the warm white flesh
Touches mine in a fond embrace;
I love your hair when the strands enmesh
Your kisses against my face.

Not for me the cold, calm kiss
Of a virgin’s bloodless love;
Not for me the saint’s white bliss,
Nor the heart of a spotless dove.
But give me the love that so freely gives
And laughs at the whole world’s blame,
With your body so young and warm in my arms,
It sets my poor heart aflame.

So kiss me sweet with your warm wet mouth,
Still fragrant with ruby wine,
And say with a fervor born of the South
That your body and soul are mine.
Clasp me close in your warm young arms,
While the pale stars shine above,
And we’ll live our whole young lives away
In the joys of a living love.

FIRST LOVE

by John Clare

I ne’er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale,
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked, what could I ail?
My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away,
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start–
They spoke as chords do from the string,
And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter’s choice?
Is love’s bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice,
Not love’s appeals to know.
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before.
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more.

OF LOVE

BY Robert Herrick

How Love came in, I do not know,
Whether by th’ eye, or eare, or no.
Or whether with the soule it came
(At first) infused with the same.
Whether in part ’tis here or there,
Or, like the soule, whole every where.
This troubles me, but as I well
As any other, this can tell;
That when from hence she does depart,
The out-let then is from the heart.

MANY IN AFTERTIMES WILL SAY OF YOU

by Christina Rossetti

Many in aftertimes will say of you
‘He loved her’ – while of me what will they say?
Not that I loved you more than just in play,
For fashion’s sake as idle women do.
Even let them prate; who know not what we knew
Of love and parting in exceeding pain.
Of parting hopeless here to meet again,
Hopeless on earth, and heaven is out of view.
But by my heart of love laid bare to you.
My love that you can make not void nor vain,
Love that foregoes you but to claim anew
Beyond this passage of the gate of death,
I charge you at the Judgment make it plain
My love of you was life and not a breath.

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP

by Emily Bronte

Love is like the wild rose-briar
Friendship like the holly-tree–
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?

The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who will call the wild-briar fair?

Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly’s sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He still may leave thy garland green.

INVITATION TO LOVE

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Come when the nights are bright with stars
Or come when the moon is mellow;
Come when the sun his golden bars
Drops on the hay-field yellow.
Come in the twilight soft and gray,
Come in the night or come in the day,
Come, O love, whene’er you may,
And you are welcome, welcome.

You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,
You are soft as the nesting dove.
Come to my heart and bring it to rest
As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.

Come when my heart is full of grief
Or when my heart is merry;
Come with the falling of the leaf
Or with the redd’ning cherry.
Come when the year’s first blossom blows,
Come when the summer gleams and glows,
Come with the winter’s drifting snows.
And you are welcome, welcome.

I WISH I COULD REMEMBER THAT FIRST DAY

by Christina Rossetti

I wish I could remember that first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me,
If bright or dim the season, it might be
Summer or Winter for aught I can say;
So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to forsee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom yet for many a May.
If only I could recollect it, such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand – Did one but know!

I LOVED YOU FIRST: BUT AFTERWARDS YOUR LOVE

by Christina Rossetti

I loved you first: but afterwards you love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And your one moment one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be —
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verify love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine,’
With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

DESIRE

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Where true Love burns Desire is Love’s pure flame;
It is the reflex of our earthly frame,
That takes its meaning from the nobler part,
And but translates the language of the heart.

A BIRTHDAY

by Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose next is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is liken an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because my birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

The classic short poems about love are so romantic. For me, it is the old English verse that the poets used…so much more descriptive.

Which of these short love poems about love did you like the best? Do you have a favorite of the many short romantic love poems published over time?