Poems that embrace forbidden love explore the power of love that transgresses societal boundaries and norms. They dive into the realm of intense passion that defies all confines. These verses intricately navigate a spectrum of emotions, from yearning, desire, fear, sadness, and courage to consuming passion, illuminating the bittersweet nature of clandestine romance.
Venturing into the world of forbidden love, these poems unravel the exhilarating thrill of escapade it entails. They show genuine love in its depth, transcending all barriers—be it societal class, familial discord, or conventional gender norms while delving into the intricacies of spiritual connection as lovers transcend limitations of even mortality.
Within these evocative poems lies a portrayal of the timeless and universal human condition as readers are stirred by the interplay between the heart’s desires and the ethical dilemmas it confronts. These poems tenderly touch upon the essence of forbidden love, inviting readers to ponder the complexities of love’s pursuit amidst societal constraints and taboos.
In ‘The Eve of St. Agnes,’ John Keats celebrates an idealized love between two lovers while integrating folk beliefs in the poem.
St. Agnes' Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Robert Browning’s ‘Confessions’ is written in the confessional mode and is about the speaker’s romantic and secretive meetings with a girl.
What is he buzzing in my ears?
"Now that I come to die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?"
Ah, reverend sir, not I!
The ‘Act 2 Prologue’ of Romeo and Juliet uses the chorus to set the stage for the tragic play’s central conflict and passion.
Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair for which love groaned for and would die,
With tender Juliet matched is now not fair.
‘Twenty-One Love Poems XIII’ by Adrienne Rich is a poem about same-sex relationships and how couples experience a new, uncharted love.
The rules break like a thermometer,
quicksilver spills across the charted systems,
we’re out in a country that has no language
no laws, we’re chasing the raven and the wren
‘Annabel Lee’ by Edgar Allan Poe is a lyrical narrative ballad about a man haunted by his lost lover, Annabel Lee.
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’ narrates the tale of the cursed Lady entrapped in a tower on the island of Shalott, who meets a tragic end.
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
‘A Careful Passion’ depicts a farewell between lovers at a seaside café, where they face the reality of losing the love they once shared.
The Cruise Inn, at the city’s edge,
Extends a breezy prospect of the sea
From tables fixed like islands near a hedge
Of foam-white flowers, and to deaden thought
In Robert Browning’s ‘Meeting at Night,’ the speaker sails across the sea to secretly reunite with his beloved under the moon’s soft glow.
The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low:
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
Duffy’s ‘Warming Her Pearls’ explores the restrained lesbian desire of a maid for her mistress through the pearls of the mistress’s necklace.
Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
bids me wear them, warm them, until evening
when I'll brush her hair. At six, I place them
round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,
‘The Anactoria Poem’ is a widely read love poem in which Sappho uses the story of Helen of Troy to speak on the nature of beauty.
Some say thronging cavalry, some say foot soldiers,
others call a fleet the most beautiful of
sights the dark earth offers, but I say it's what-
ever you love best.
‘On Her Loving Two Equally’ by Aphra Behn is a portrayal of a woman’s heart torn between two lovers, clearly illustrating the agony and indecision that accompany such deep, conflicting emotions.
How strongly does my Passion flow,
Divided equally ’twixt two?
Damon had ne’er subdued my heart,
Had not Alexis took his part;
‘Porphyria’s Lover,’ opens up with a classic setting of a stormy evening. It is a story of a deranged and lovesick man.
The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
‘The Expiration’ by John Donne captures an incredibly emotional moment between two lovers and the consequences of it.
So, so breake off this last lamenting kisse,
Which sucks two soules, and vapours Both away,
Turne thou ghost that way, and let mee turne this,
And let our selves benight our happiest day,
A sonnet where reason slowly gives way to love, ‘Astrophil and Stella: Sonnet 5’ by Sir Philip Sidney captures the quiet struggle between moral understanding and deep emotional longing.
It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve
The inward light; and that the heavenly part
Ought to be king, from whose rules who do swerve,
Rebels to Nature, strive for their own smart.
Browning’s ‘A Light Woman’ is a dramatic monologue in which the narrator tells how he disrupts a loving relationship between his friend and his friend’s lover. Through the narrator’s actions, the poem expounds on love and possessiveness.
So far as our story approaches the end,
Which do you pity the most of us three?---
My friend, or the mistress of my friend
With her wanton eyes, or me?
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