Does anyone know of any? I’m mainly looking for really nice poems…I don’t usually read poetry but this is a special reason and I have no idea where to look.
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgment making.
Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
~Shakespeare’s 87th Sonnet
For the most part, I would reccomend reading Shakespeare’s sonnets. The above is a personal favorite of mine.
As far as love songs, “Unchained Melodies” by the Righteous Brother’s has always been my personal favorite.
This is one of my absolute favorite love poems. It’s by William Butler Yeats.
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
I never even thought of Shakespear, silly me. But those, yes are the kinds I’m looking for. Thanks guys, and hopefully keep them coming (they all don’t have to be in the same format though, I’m not that picky ;P)
I think the song is called “Something Stupid”. It’s without a doubt the best duet karoke song ever.
It’s got the line “And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you” if my song title was wrong.
Ms Eva, you trying to woo? ^.^
This isn’t exactly you’re looking for (sorry), but I remembered reading this poem a long time ago, and it moved me so goddamn much that I just want to share it with you guys, also by Yeats:
The Cap and Bells
The jester walked in the garden:
The garden had fallen still;
He bade his soul rise upward
And stand on her window-sill.
It rose in a straight blue garment,
When owls began to call:
It had grown wise-tongued by thinking
Of a quiet and light footfall;
But the young queen would not listen;
She rose in her pale night-gown;
She drew in the heavy casement
And pushed the latches down.
He bade his heart go to her,
When the owls called out no more;
In a red and quivering garment
It sang to her through the door.
It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming
Of a flutter of flower-like hair;
But she took up her fan from the table
And waved it off on the air.
‘I have cap and bells,’ he pondered,
‘I will send them to her and die’;
And when the morning whitened
He left them where she went by.
She laid them upon her bosom,
Under a cloud of her hair,
And her red lips sang them a love-song
Till stars grew out of the air.
She opened her door and her window,
And the heart and the soul came through,
To her right hand came the red one,
To her left hand came the blue.
They set up a noise like crickets,
A chattering wise and sweet,
And her hair was a folded flower
And the quiet of love in her feet.
Oooooh, “it had grown wise-tongued by thinking
of a quiet and light footfall…”
…
“it had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming
of a flutter of flower-like hair”
oooh this is so, so so so beautiful I can’t even get over ittt, sigh
It’s so incredibly sad though, 's why I don’t think it’d suit your needs. But still - it’s for the rest of y’all’s poetic education.
Haha I love that song, but I can’t serenade my boyfriend with that, he’d laugh himself to death.
it’s our 2 year anniversary coming up on the 26th blush so Im just looking for some really nice verses or just anything to do with poetry to um, woo him with ^^ I tried writing poetry for him before but I was 15 and they sucked major ass (and I still do with poetry, to this day)
So what better way than to get print outs from the net?!
EDIT: Aw feel free to share to your heart’s content Maz. It takes a lot to move me with poetry, but we can all post some and pretend to hold hands and sing cumbya or something.
Also: “Fell in love with a Girl” by the White Stripes is a very cool song with decidedly poetic lyrics. Here they are:
edit: Again it’s probably not what you’re looking for - this is more of a confused song than you’d want I think. Plus it’s from a guy to a girl. But still, haha, give it to him to sing to you. 
fell in love with a girl
i fell in love once and almost completely
she’s in love with the world
but sometimes these feelings can be so misleading
she turns and says are you alright?
i said i must be fine cause my heart’s still beating
come and kiss me by the riverside yeah
bobby said he fine he don’t consider it cheating now
red hair with a curl
mellow roll for the flavor
and the eyes for peeping
can’t keep away from the girl
these two sides of my brain
need to have a meeting
can’t think of anything to do yeah
my left brain knows that all love is fleeting
she’s just looking for something new
and I said it once before but it bears repeating now
aaaaaaah ah
aaaaaaah ah
aaaaaaah ah
aaaaaaah ah
can’t think of anything to do yeah
my left brain knows that all love is fleeting
she’s just looking for something new
well i said it once before but it bears repeating now
fell in love with a girl
i fell in love once and almost completely
she’s in love with the world
but sometimes these feelings can be so misleading
she turns and says “are you alright?”
i said “i must be fine because my heart’s still beating”
“come and kiss me by the riverside yeah
bobby said he fine he don’t consider it cheating” now
aaaaaaah ah
aaaaaaah ah
aaaaaaah ah
aaaaaaah ah
can’t think of anything to do yeah
my left brain knows that all love is fleeting
she’s just looking for something new
and i said it once before but it bears repeating now
Man, I’m on a roll, going through all my music, getting my sighs on, hang on here’s another, by the Talking Heads, called “This Must Be The Place.” You guys should listen to it together.
There’s one really awesome line in it, one of the prettiest, coolest lyrics I’ve ever heard,
“Out of all those kinds of people
You got a face with a view”
Okay here’s the whole thing
Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
I feel numb - burn with a weak heart
(So I) guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground
Head in the sky
It’s ok I know nothing’s wrong . . nothing
Hi yo I got plenty of time
Hi yo you got light in your eyes
And you’re standing here beside me
I love the passing of time
Never for money
Always for love
Cover up + say goodnight . . . say goodnight
Home - is where I want to be
But I guess I’m already there
I come home - -she lifted up her wings
Guess that this must be the place
I can’t tell one from another
Did I find you, or you find me?
There was a time Before we were born
If someone asks, this where I’ll be . . . where I’ll be
Hi yo We drift in and out
Hi yo sing into my mouth
Out of all those kinds of people
You got a face with a view
I’m just an animal looking for a home
Share the same space for a minute or two
And you love me till my heart stops
Love me till I’m dead
Eyes that light up, eyes look through you
Cover up the blank spots
Hit me on the head Ah ooh
I didn’t know Sinatra did my song. He’s the man.
Here’s the link.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
sugar is sweet
an- PENIS PENIS PENIS!
Somewhat happy, somewhat sad, but a love poem all the same.
[Untitled]
We held hands on the last night on earth.
Our mouths filled with dust, we kissed in the fields and under trees,
screaming like dogs, bleeding dark into the leaves.
It was empty on the edge of town but we knew everyone floated
along the bottom of the river.
So we walked through the waste where the road curved into the sea
and the shattered seasons lay,
and the bitter smell of burning was on you like a disease.
In our cancer of passion you said, “Death is a midnight runner.”
The sky had come crashing down like the news of an intimate suicide.
We picked up the shards and formed them into shapes
of stars that wore like an antique wedding dress.
The echoes of the past broke the hearts of the unborn
as the ferris wheel silently slowed to a stop.
The few insects skittered away in hopes of a better pastime.
I kissed you at the apex of the maelstrom and asked
if you would accompany me in a quick fall,
but you made me realize that my ticket wasn’t for two.
I rode alone.
You said, “The cinders are falling like snow.”
There is poetry in despair, and we sang with unrivaled beauty,
bitter elegies of savagery and eloquence.
Of blue and grey.
Strange, we ran down desperate streets and carved our names in the flesh of the city.
The sun was stagnated somewhere beyond the rim of the horizon
and the darkness is a mystery of curves and lines.
Still, we lay under the emptiness and drifted slowly outward,
and somewhere in the wilderness we found salvation scratched
into the earth like a message.
Here’s another one, this time it’s an actual song.
It’s by AFI.
Kinda needs some interpretation, but it’s good all the same =P
“This Celluloid Dream”
Calling tears from deep inside, oh, you’re so exquisite
And in the mirror, all midnight eyes
Oh, if I could remain, but it’s just a visit
All midnight eyes read “vacancy”
Twisted, twisting
To the lovely dancing lights, I begged, “May I cut in?”
But they never stopped playing “their song”
Of a joyous song they sing, I’ve heard whispers
On a freezing note, I resonate
Just like romantic verses, just like a joyous end
Just like a memory, it twists me
Just like romantic verses, just like a joyous end
Twist… twisting me
You land as lightly as the new snow, cinematic
Onto the melting boy, and melt away
You light as gently, you’re so cinematic
Bathed in your radiance, I melt
In the glitter, in the dark, sunk into velvet
Praying this will never end
In the shadow of a star, in static pallor
I realized I never began
Just like romantic verses, just like a joyous end
Just like a memory, it twists me
Just like romantic verses, just like a joyous end
Twist… twisting me
You land as lightly as the new snow, cinematic
Onto the melting boy, and melt away
You light as gently, you’re so cinematic
Bathed in your radiance, I melt
All the colours upon leaving, all will turn to grey
All the colours upon leaving, all will turn to grey
(All grey) All the colours (All grey) upon leaving
(All grey) all will turn to grey
(All grey) All the colours (All grey) upon leaving
(All grey) all will turn to grey… grey…
You land as lightly as the new snow, cinematic
Onto the melting boy, and melt away
You light as gently, you’re so cinematic
Bathed in your radiance
You land as lightly as the new snow, cinematic
You land as lightly as the new snow, and melt away
You land as lightly as the new snow, cinematic
Bathed in your radiance, I melt
SPEAKING of SINATRA, I don’t think it’d be a very good idea to go out and sing this to him, but “Fly me to the Moon” is a great song too. And I’m not just saying that because it’s in Eva >=(
It’s a nice idea, but the thing with using poetry that isn’t yours, is that it’s so less personal than writing it yourself. When you write it yourself, you know that it’s your feelings you’re giving to him, and not your interpretations of another poet’s feelings. Also, just think how he’d feel if you gave him a piece of poetry that you took AGES to write yourself, just to give to him, rather than giving him a poem you just quickly found? He’d be completely overwhelmed.
Urkani’s advice is the best way. Examine your relationship, think of things that would seem small and insignifant to an outsider but hold a special meaning between you two, and subtly touch on them in something of your own creation. A poem might be the best way to express this. All guys have a soft side, and after two years I’m sure you know what moves him.
Two years is a long time. Congrats, good luck.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats 5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go 35
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— 40
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare 45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all— 55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress 65
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while, 90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— 95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while, 100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . . 110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use, 115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old … 120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me. 125
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
If you try writing poetry again, make a thesaurus your friend. Or you could just write a love letter telling why you love him mentioning his cute quirks too.
How do love thee? Let me count the ways.
One one-thousand. Two one-thousand. Three one-thousand. Four one-thousand. Five…
or this verison: http://www.amherst.edu/~rjyanco/literature/elizabethbarrettbrowning/poems/sonnetsfromtheportuguese/howdoilovetheeletmecounttheways.html
Look into the Romantic poets, like Byron, Keats and Shelley. Or, if you want something more modern, try “Lovesong” by the Cure.
My favorite love poem is The Eve of St. Agnes, by John Keats. It might be a little long for the purposes of wooing your boyfriend, though. My favorite love song is Forever Love, by X Japan. This is mostly in translation:
Forever Love
I’ll never walk alone again - the winds of time are too strong
Ah, it hurts, what one has to live with. . .
Ah, this tight embrace, this burning, unchanged heart
Through these ever changing times, love will never change
Will you hold my heart? Stop the flowing tears
Again, it is broken - all my heart
Forever Love Forever Dream
Only flowing emotions
Bury these intense, trying, meaningless times
Oh tell me why - all I see is blue in my heart. . .
Will you stay with me until the wind passes?
Still, they are flowing - all my tears
Forever Love Forever Dream
Stay with me like this
At dawn, hold my trembling heart
Oh stay with me
Ah, everything seems to be ending in this unending night
Ah, how everything is parting - there is nothing, only you
Forever Love Forever Dream
Stay with me like this
At dawn, hold my trembling heart
Oh - will you stay with me until the wind passes?
More, again, stay with me
Forever Love Forever Dream
I’ll never walk this path
Oh tell me why, oh tell me true - tell me how to live
Forever Love Forever Dream
In flowing tears
Until the shining seasons pass on to eternity
Forever Love