Love Poetry - Poems for a Broken Heart

1. The Broken Heart – By John Donne

He is stark mad, whoever says,
That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
But that it can ten in less space devour;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
Who would not laugh at me, if I should say
I saw a flash of powder burn a day?

Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
If once into love's hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part
To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
They come to us, but us love draws;
He swallows us and never chaws;
By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die;
He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.

If 'twere not so, what did become
Of my heart when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room,
But from the room I carried none with me.
If it had gone to thee, I know
Mine would have taught thine heart to show
More pity unto me ; but Love, alas!
At one first blow did shiver it as glass.

Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
Nor any place be empty quite;
Therefore I think my breast hath all
Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
But after one such love, can love no more.

2. BEQUEST-  By Emily Dickinson

You left me, sweet, two legacies, --
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had He the offer of;
You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.

3. Aloof-By Christina Rossetti

The irresponsive silence of the land,
The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
Speak both one message of one sense to me :-
‘Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
Thou too aloof, bound with the flawless band
Of inner solitude ; we bind not thee ;
But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free ?
What heart shall touch thy heart ? What hand thy hand ? -
And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,
And sometimes I remember days of old
When fellowship seemed not so far to seek,
And all the world and I seemed much less cold,
And at the rainbow’s foot lay surely gold,
And hope felt strong, and life itself not weak.

4.I know – By Edna St Mullay

I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.

5. A wounded deer leaps highest - by Emily  Dickinson

A wounded deer leaps highest,
I've heard the hunter tell;
'Tis but the ecstasy of death,
And then the brake is still.

The smitten rock that gushes,
The trampled steel that springs:
A cheek is always redder
Just where the hectic stings!

Mirth is mail of anguish,
In which its cautious arm
Lest anybody spy the blood
And, "you're hurt" exclaim

Heart, We Will Forget Him
by Emily  Dickinson

Heart, we will forget him,
You and I, tonight!
You must forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.

When you have done pray tell me,
Then I, my thoughts, will dim.
Haste! ?lest while you?re lagging
I may remember him!

6. I must accept but cant what cannot be – By Nicholas Gordon
(Contemporary )

I must accept but can't what cannot be.
I see you and my heart dissolves in pain.
You are not dead, but you are dead to me.

What happened to our love's a mystery.
I rummage through our empty past in vain.
I must accept but can't what cannot be:

That someone else now shares your off-hand "we,"
Now feels your tender tongue all feeling drain . . .
You are not dead, but you are dead to me.

I cannot lay aside my agony:
Again, again I play the same refrain.
I must accept but can't what cannot be.

And yet I know this tortured ecstasy
Is just my way of holding you again.
You are not dead, but you are dead to me,

And still I cannot bear to set you free,
That of our love some remnant might remain.
I must accept but can't what cannot be.
You are not dead, but you are dead to me.