Gathered here are the most touching and evocative love poems of all time. From Shakespeare's "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" through Mark Van Doren's "My Love Comes Walking," the poems span the centuries with their universal and eternal message the love between a man and a woman. How Do I Love Thee? is a book for all who love.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's classic poem introduces the world of love:
How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach...
In another poem Jean Starr Untermeyer describes the first blush of love: "And that afternoon was filled with a blurred glory–/That afternoon, when we first talked as lovers."
What is love? One poet says it is "A rain of diamonds...in the mind." Each poet has his own personal definition of love. To Robert Bridges, love is "My delight and thy delight/Walking, like two angels white." Robert Burns sees his beloved as a flower: "My luve is like a red, red rose."
The poetry included in How Do I Love Thee? describes love's yearnings, love's birth, and love remembered. Sara Teasdale invokes these sentiments:
My first love gave me singing,
My second eyes to see,
But oh, it was my third love
Who gave my soul to me.
Baudelaire's love soars on the wings of wine: "In a twin delirium glorying/And racing on, love, side by side."
Married love, a true communion of heart and mind, is the love that time can never alter. Here poet John Ciardi pays his wife tribute and devoted commitment:
Men marry what they need.
I marry you, morning by morning,
day by day,
night by night,
and every marriage makes
this marriage new.
Here is love–glorious, poignant, full of meaning in the green and golden years. How Do I Love Thee? is as inspiring as it is timeless. These are poems that endure.