Poetry & Reflection
Selected Poems
Love PoemsRemember
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Overview Short Summary
Rossetti turns remembrance into an act of love, but she also allows the beloved freedom from endless grief.
Reader Intent Why This Poem Fits
This poem fits readers searching for poems about life love and memories, poems about love life and memories because it connects private feeling with a larger reflection on the heart, relationships, struggle, healing, or the meaning of life.
Echo
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimful of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker longs for lost love to return through dreams, where memory briefly restores what life has taken away.
Reader Intent Why This Poem Fits
This poem fits readers searching for touching poems about love and life, poems about love life and sadness because it connects private feeling with a larger reflection on the heart, relationships, struggle, healing, or the meaning of life.
A Birthday
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick-set 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 the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
Overview Short Summary
This poem celebrates love as a renewal of life, using rich natural and decorative imagery to show emotional abundance.
Reader Intent Why This Poem Fits
This poem fits readers searching for heartfelt poems about love and life, poems about love that changes your life because it connects private feeling with a larger reflection on the heart, relationships, struggle, healing, or the meaning of life.
Love III
Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
Overview Short Summary
Herbert personifies Love as patient, forgiving, and welcoming, making the poem powerful for readers searching for love that heals shame and pain.
Reader Intent Why This Poem Fits
This poem fits readers searching for poems about love through hard times, poems about love healing and life because it connects private feeling with a larger reflection on the heart, relationships, struggle, healing, or the meaning of life.
Love’s Philosophy
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?
Overview Short Summary
Shelley uses nature as emotional proof that love, connection, and union are part of life’s larger pattern.
Reader Intent Why This Poem Fits
This poem fits readers searching for emotional love and life poems, touching poems about love and life because it connects private feeling with a larger reflection on the heart, relationships, struggle, healing, or the meaning of life.
