One World in Love
Love Across Distance Poems
Love PoemsThe Good Morrow
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone;
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown;
Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die.
Overview Short Summary
The poem imagines love as a world complete in itself. Its references to maps, worlds, and hemispheres make it useful for readers searching for love across distance poems.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Shared world: The lovers do not need distant worlds because love creates its own world.
- Unity: Two lovers become one balanced emotional world.
- Mature love: The poem moves from childish pleasures to awakened souls.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is confident, amazed, and intimate. The mood is expansive and deeply romantic.
Craft Literary Devices
- Metaphysical conceit: The lovers are compared to worlds and hemispheres.
- Allusion: The Seven Sleepers reference suggests awakening from an earlier life.
- Geographical imagery: Maps and worlds turn love into a complete universe.
How Do I Love Thee
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker defines love as deep, daily, free, pure, and lasting beyond death. It works well as an emotional long distance love poem because its love is not limited by place.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Unconditional love: Love is counted through spiritual, daily, and lifelong measures.
- Devotion: The speaker gives all breath, smiles, and tears to love.
- Eternity: The final line imagines love continuing beyond death.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is reverent, passionate, and sincere. The mood is elevated and comforting.
Craft Literary Devices
- Anaphora: Repeated ‘I love thee’ creates rhythm and emotional force.
- Rhetorical question: The opening question frames the poem as a personal declaration.
- Hyperbole: Love is measured to the full reach of the soul.
When We Two Parted
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o’er me—
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:—
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met—
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?—
With silence and tears.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker remembers a painful parting that continues to hurt after years. It fits sad long distance love poems where separation, silence, and betrayal remain unresolved.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Separation: The lovers part for years in silence and tears.
- Memory: The speaker continues to relive the emotional wound.
- Betrayal: Broken vows add shame and grief to distance.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is mournful, bitter, and private. The mood is cold and sorrowful.
Craft Literary Devices
- Repetition: Silence and tears return at the beginning and end, enclosing the grief.
- Sound imagery: The beloved’s name is compared to a funeral bell.
- Circular structure: The poem ends where it began, showing unresolved pain.
To One in Paradise
Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine—
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
“On! on!”—but o’er the Past
Dim gulf! my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!
For, alas! alas! with me
The light of Life is o’er!
“No more—no more—no more,”
Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore,
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!
And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy grey eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams—
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker mourns a beloved who has become unreachable, like a lost paradise. It fits poems for someone far away you love when distance feels permanent or spiritual.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Loss: The beloved is remembered as a paradise that can no longer be reached.
- Longing: Dreams and memories keep the beloved present.
- Time: The speaker is trapped between the future’s command and the past’s pull.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is mournful, haunted, and lyrical. The mood is dreamlike and deeply sad.
Craft Literary Devices
- Metaphor: The beloved is a green isle, fountain, and shrine.
- Repetition: ‘No more’ intensifies the sense of final loss.
- Imagery: Sea, flowers, stars, and streams build a lost paradise.
Annabel Lee
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes! that was the reason, as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea,
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker remembers a love so strong that even death cannot divide their souls. It fits deep long distance love poems where distance becomes emotional, spiritual, or eternal.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Love beyond separation: The speaker insists that no power can divide his soul from Annabel Lee’s.
- Memory: Moon and stars repeatedly bring the beloved back to mind.
- Grief: The poem turns mourning into a continuing bond.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is musical, obsessive, and mournful. The mood is romantic but haunting.
Craft Literary Devices
- Repetition: The repeated name ‘Annabel Lee’ makes memory feel unending.
- Setting: The kingdom by the sea creates a fairy-tale distance.
- Hyperbole: Angels and demons become part of the speaker’s claim about love.
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