The Most Beautiful Love Poems 

I Love You (Paul Éluard)

 

I love you for all the women I have never known

I love you for all the times I have not lived

For the scent of the open sea and the smell of warm bread

For the snow that melts and the first flowers

For the pure animals that man does not frighten

I love you to love

I love you for all the women I do not love

 

Who reflects me if not you? I see myself so little

Without you, I see nothing but a barren expanse

Between the past and today

There have been all those deaths I crossed on straw

I couldn’t break through the wall of my mirror

I had to learn life word by word

As one forgets

 

I love you for your wisdom, which is not mine

For health

I love you against everything that is merely an illusion

For that immortal heart that I do not hold

You think you are doubt, but you are only reason

You are the great sun that rises to my head

When I am sure of myself.

 

The Oath (Marceline Desbordes-Valmore)

 

Idol of my life,

My torment, my delight,

Tell me if your desire

Matches my own?

As I love you in my finest days,

I wish to love you always.

 

Give me hope;

I offer it back to you in return.

Teach me steadfastness;

I will teach you love.

As I love you in my finest days,

I wish to love you always.

 

Be the sole memory

Of a heart that adores you;

I promise you again

All that my future holds.

As I love you in my finest days,

I wish to love you always.

 

Drawn to your soul

By the sweetest rapture,

Upon your cherished lips

Let me say once more:

As I love you in my finest days,

I wish to love you always.

 

 

What I Love More Than Life Itself Is You (Eugène Goubert)

 

I love the flower about to bloom,

The fresh grass and the budding leaves,

The butterfly, symbol of delight,

The love songs of birds in the grove;

 

I love to dream as day fades away

By a stream that softly murmurs,

I love the star, herald of the night,

Whose rays console nature;

 

I love the crystal azure of the lake,

I love in the valley the shepherdess’s songs.

The snow-capped mountain kissed by the sun,

The evening echo and the gentle breeze;

 

I love the sweet voice of a young child,

The white hair on an aged brow,

I love the wind whistling in the woods,

The rock battered by angry waves;

 

But the truest happiness for me,

The thought where my heart loses itself;

What I love more than life,

Is you, always you, only you!

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We Shall Sleep Together (Louis Aragon)

 

Be it Sunday or Monday,

Evening or morning, midnight or noon,

In hell or in heaven,

Loves resemble each other.

It was yesterday that I told you,

We shall sleep together.

 

It was yesterday and it is tomorrow,

I have no path but you.

I have placed my heart in your hands

With yours it ambles along.

All that it has of human time,

We shall sleep together.

 

My love, what was will be,

The sky over us like a sheet.

I have closed my arms around you,

And so much do I love you that I tremble.

As long as you will have it,

We shall sleep together.

 

 

Love Me with Love (François-Marie Robert-Dutertre)

 

What I love to see, what I love in the world,

What I love to see,

Would you like to know?

It is your beautiful eyes, it is your rounded form,

It is your beautiful eyes,

Your languorous eyes.

 

What I love yet, I will tell you,

What I love even more

Than any treasure,

It is your sweet songs, it is your voice so tender,

It is your sweet songs,

Mournful and touching.

 

What causes in me the sweetest drunkenness,

What causes in me

The tenderest stir,

It is to see your heart vibrate with tenderness,

It is to see your heart

Quiver with happiness.

 

Finally, if you wish to answer to my ardor,

Finally, if you want

To fulfill all my wishes,

Until the last day keep your soul for me,

Until the last day

Love me with love.

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Love (Pierre Grolier)

 

Sweet as the fragrances your hair adores,

As a tender glance you cast my way,

As the touching words your lips softly convey:

Sweeter still is my love for you.

 

Sweet as the blush that colors your brow

When I vow to live forever under your sway,

As the throbs of the heart I worship each day:

Sweeter still is my love for you.

 

Sweet as your breath and as your smile,

As your long kisses that fill me with dismay,

Sweet as your confession, the only treasure I crave:

Sweeter still is my love for you.

 

Yes, of all the happiness that blossoms in life,

Of pleasures my soul has dreamed every day,

Of visions beautified by your cherished face:

Nothing is as sweet as my love!

 

 

You Believe in Coffee Grounds (Paul Verlaine)

 

You believe in coffee grounds,

In omens, in grand games:

I believe only in your large eyes.

 

You believe in fairy tales,

In ominous days, in dreams.

I believe only in your lies.

 

You believe in a vague God,

In some special saint,

In certain prayers against certain woes.

 

I believe only in the blue

And pink hours that you lavish

In the bliss of sleepless nights!

 

And so deep is my faith

In all that I believe,

That I live only for you.

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I Need You (Marc Delaure)

 

I need you for dawn to wake me,

To gently emerge from dreams

I need you to find sleep

And to pick up the thread of dreams

 

I need you to rise early

With all joy in my heart

I need you in uncertain hope

For the whims of happiness

 

I need you to steady my pen

To find the words that fit

I need you to cross through the fog

And take the paths that appear

 

I need you in absence or embrace

For laughter as much as for tears

I need you to erase my fears

In silence or in noise

 

I need you to excite my senses

Scents of dreams, perfumes of desires

For caresses of innocence

I need you for the taste of life

 

I need you for my imagination

To dream up every landscape

I need you to soar over the Earth

For the wonders of the journey

 

I need you for passion and desires

For flesh and for thoughts

I need you, the pulp of pleasure

For the joy of losing my way

 

I need you to confess my love

You to savor the silence

You for the night, you for the day

You for the flight of a dance

 

I need you, my love,

Thus to you always my thoughts turn

Words fail, but do not fear

To accept this confession without distrust:

 

I need you, my love.

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The Cup of Love (Micheline Lantin)

 

In an endless dance,

A song of love to life,

On the path of destiny, I smile.

 

In the cottage of my thoughts,

An umbrella of stars in the sky.

Sweet harbingers of honeymoon nights.

 

My soul laid bare, basks gently,

On the lost paths of happiness.

And surrenders at the doorstep of your heart.

 

By the glow of the candle, desiring,

Flowing in the river of your kisses.

With long languid sighs, to love.

 

Passion ignites our inflamed hearts.

Carried away by the delirium of love, to sink

Into deliverance, in the depths of our souls.

The communion of the two of us, our blend.

 

To embrace, a lullaby to our euphoria.

To caress the present time of our frenzies.

The moon, witness to our union, blesses it.

And dawn kisses our two sleeping bodies.

 

To be yours, your lover, your beauty,

The maiden of your journeys.

You and I, immortal souls,

Drinking from the cup of love.

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I Love an Angel with Gentle Eyes (Louis Oppepin)

 

I love an angel with gentle eyes and brown hair,

Whose voice delights me, whose gaze intoxicates!

My soul has two desires: to worship her and follow her!

If her heart could hear me, God would fulfill my wishes.

 

She possesses the enchanting charms of youth!

Grace shines on her features like a beautiful sky;

Virtue smiles at her, beauty crowns her!

In the spring's morning, she is the queen of flowers!

 

Her smile for me is the ray of a beautiful day!

Her gracious gesture troubles and caresses me!

She passes by... my heart trembles with chaste exhilaration!

In her, I have placed everything: happiness, hope, love!

 

 

I Do Not Love You Like a Salt Rose (Pablo Neruda)

 

I do not love you as one loves a salt rose,

or topaz, or the arrow of carnations that propagate fire:

I love you as certain dark things are loved,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

 

I love you like the plant that does not bloom

and carries within itself, hidden, the light of those flowers,

and thanks to your love, darkly in my body

lives the dense fragrance that rose from the earth.

 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

thus I love you because I know no other way,

 

than this: where I do not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

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In Praise of Love (Jean de La Fontaine)

 

The whole universe obeys Love;

Beautiful Psyche, surrender your soul to him.

The other gods court this god,

And their power is less sweet than his flame.

For young hearts, it is the supreme good

Love, love; all else is nothing.

 

Without this Love, so many enchanting things,

Gilded panels, woods, gardens, and fountains,

Have no allure that isn’t languid,

And their pleasures are less sweet than his sorrows.

For young hearts, it is the supreme good

Love, love; all else is nothing.

 

 

If You Exist (Jean-Pierre Villebramar)

 

It matters little that I am sad

if you exist.

 

What weigh the hours

if you exist.

 

Let the hours of days pass,

the hours of nights,

 

the hours of absence, then those of time regained

if you exist.

 

Let me be overtaken by the weariness of loving

if you exist.

 

The weariness of existing

if you exist.

 

Let gray days follow blue days

if you exist.

 

It matters little that I suffer

if you exist.

 

That I suffer

if you exist.

 

That I suffer

if you exist.

 

That I love you without hope of return

if you exist.

 

That I love you

if you exist.

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I Love You So Much, I Cannot Say It Enough (Fabre d'Églantine)

 

I love you so, I love you so:

I cannot say it enough,

And yet I repeat it

Each time I breathe.

Absent, present, near, far,

"I love you" is the word I find:

Alone, with you, before witnesses,

Either I think it or I prove it.

 

To write "I love you" in a hundred ways

Is the sole task of my pen;

I sing of you in my songs,

I read you in every volume.

Should a beauty offer her features,

I search for you on her face;

In paintings, in portraits

I wish to rediscover your image.

 

In town, in the fields, at home, outside,

Your sweet image is cherished;

It merges, as I fall asleep,

With my last thought;

When I awaken, I see you

Before having seen the light,

And my heart belongs to you

Quicker than day to my eyelid.

 

Absent, I do not leave you;

I guess all your words.

I count your cares and your steps;

What you feel, I imagine.

Back near you, I am in heaven, it is ecstasy;

I breathe only love,

And it is your breath I inhale.

 

Your heart is everything to me. My good, my law,

Pleasing you is all my desire;

Finally, in you, by you, for you,

I breathe and cling to life.

My beloved, my treasure!

What more shall I add to this language?

God! how I love you! And yet, still

I wish I could love you more.

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I Love You, My Love (Jean de Palaprat)

 

If only you knew how much I love you,

I die when I cannot see you;

From your glances and your steps

I make my highest law.

 

I will always love you the same

Up to the gates of death.

You may see your charms change,

But never my extreme love.

 

Possession, old age, ugliness,

Nothing can extinguish the fervor

That you kindled in my soul.

 

You would suspect it wrongly!

Ah, sweet love, I will love you,

Even if you became my wife.

 

 

I Think of You, My Love (Benjamin Dumur)

 

I think of you when the dawning aurora

Announces the bright star of the day,

I think of you when the sun colors

With its rays the hills around;

I think of you, my love.

 

I think of you when the fickle bee

Alights on the queen of flowers,

I think of you when the bird of the grove

Strikes the echo with its flattering sounds;

I think of you, my love.

 

I think of you when the sensitive plant

At a mere touch sees its freshness dim,

I think of you, my soul more captive,

Fearing to hurt your ear and your heart;

I think of you, my love.

 

If someday for the most tender lover

You felt the torments of love,

Gods! What bliss, to see you and to hear

Your sweet and lovely voice say in turn:

I think of you, my love!

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