Classic Love Poems
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William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English poet, playwright, dramatist, and actor. Widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, he is often called England’s National Poet and the “Bard of Avon” (or simply “The Bard”). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and other shorter poems. Years after his death, doubts emerged about the authorship of the works attributed to him. There are some scholars who believe the true author was Christopher Marlowe.
“Ophelia”
by John William Waterhouse, 1894
Ophelia is a fictional character in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius,
sister of Laertes, and
sweetheart of Prince Hamlet.
Take, O Take Those Lips Away
Take, O take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again,
Bring again,
Seals of love, but seal’d in vain,
Seal’d in vain.
Sonnet XVIII: Shall I Compare Thee
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou are 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 dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st 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.
Sonnet XCIII: So Shall I Live
So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband; so love’s face
May still seem love to me, though altered new;
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.
In many’s looks, the false heart’s history
Is writ in moods, and frowns, and wrinkles strange.
But heaven in thy creation did decree
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;
Whate’er thy thoughts, or thy heart’s workings be,
Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.
How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow,
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!
Carpe Diem
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear! your true-love’s coming
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journey’s end in lovers’ meeting—
Every wise man’s son doth know.
What is love? ’tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What’s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,—
Then come kiss me, Sweet and twenty,
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.
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