classic love poems

You've read them before, perhaps a dozen times. But classic love poems bear repeating -- and re-reading. They don't grow stale with age. They express our timeless feelings of love.

How do I love the? 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 candlelight.
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.

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Live with me, and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valley's, dales and fields
And all the craggy mountains yields
There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, by whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
There will I make thee a bed or roses,
With a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Then live with me and be my love.

by William Shakespeare, Sonnet XX