Riding the Waves of Emotion: The Best Poems About Love and Heartbreak

Love and heartbreak are two sides of the same coin – one brings the highest of highs, the other the lowest of lows. Poetry is a medium that has beautifully captured these intense emotions for centuries. Here are some of the best poems about love and heartbreak that will take you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions.

In Love:

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

How Do I Love Thee (Sonnet 43) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.

Heartbreak:

When We Two Parted by Lord Byron

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.

Song of Sorrow by Kahlil Gibran

O sweetest song,

Do I press thee close to my heart

And fill my soul with thee too,’”

And wing my words aright
To reach the distant spheres of the generous sky?

Or do I hold on a moment—yea,

Changeth my song to a weird abstraction
Of kindred woes and calming joy?

Lo! these depths lie uncharted indeed
In the ripening sail-furrows of a poet ideal.

In this short-breathed sonant spell

How hath this foul corruption set in

And shed a light no man’s lamp will reach!

These poems are just a few examples of how love can fill you with hope and joy, but also break your heart in unimaginable ways. They capture these complex and intense emotions in words that are hauntingly beautiful. So, grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and prepare yourself to ride the waves of emotion with these amazing works of poetry.