15+ Best Poems about Loving Someone You Can't Have
(15 to start, 60+ to explore)
Poetry about unrequited love is deeply poignant, echoing with a profound sense of longing, heartache, and melancholic yearning. These verses delve into the agonizing beauty of loving someone out of reach, exploring themes of longing, despair, and silent devotion.
The poet uses evocative imagery and emotive language to encapsulate the bittersweet pain of unfulfilled love. Such poetry resonates with anyone who has ever experienced the anguish and longing of unrequited love.
‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ by John Keats is an intriguing narrative that explores death, decay, and love with a supernatural aura.
The poem depicts the emotion of loving someone you can't have with nuance. The knight grapples with the torment of loving someone unattainable. His intense affection for the lady, now absent, renders him metaphorically dead, like a withered plant or faded rose, leaving only melancholy in its wake. He is condemned to eternal suffering, trapped in the anguish of longing for someone he can never have. The knight's heart-wrenching torment resonates deeply, capturing the universal emotion of loving someone beyond reach, an aching human experience that echoes across time and space.
‘Gacela of Unforseen Love’ explores the relationship between love and despair through a remembered romance which has run its course.
The regretful voice of the poem is one of its most impactful elements - the narrator appears to physically and emotionally ache for the one they love, but cannot have.
‘Tess’s Lament’ by Thomas Hardy is a depressing poem that agonizes over the grief and regret of one woman’s tragic heartbreak.
In the third stanza, Hardy's speaker reveals that the reason for their lament is heartbreak. "And now he's gone; and now he's gone; .../ And now he's gone!" they cry out in agony, imagining the flowers once exchanged between the two lovers as a rotting mess. Although the poem is ambiguous about the specific reasons for the separation, Tess blames herself and sees no hope in the possibility of her lover's return. "I cannot bear my fate as writ," her words articulate the gutting despair she's been stricken with over the heartache.
‘On Raglan Road’ is a superb rendering of the breakdown of a relationship that brilliantly examines the way regret works.
This is the central theme of 'On Raglan Road'. Kavanagh falls for a woman who does not return his love, yet he knowingly walks into heartbreak. His poetic imagery, such as the “angel” metaphor, shows how he idealized her despite understanding the inevitable pain. The poem captures both the intensity and futility of unreciprocated love, making it a poignant exploration of human emotion.
On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.
‘Love Armed’ warns the reader against falling under the embittering and tyrannical control of love.
Ultimately, the speaker suffers because the person they love doesn't share the same feelings for them. Their frustrated desire consumes them, leaving them feeling vulnerable and desolate, while their beloved is crowned "the Victor" for their unscathed heart. This essentially reveals the one-sided nature of the speaker's affections, as only they feel the sting of love's vacancy, which eventually leads them to identify it as an unfair fate. As the poem comes to an end, one final unnerving image depicts the pair as worshippers at the altar of a cruel god, a vision that encapsulates the lopsided transactional nature of love.
Love in Fantastic Triumph sat, Whilst Bleeding Hearts around him flowed, For whom Fresh pains he did Create, Love in Fantastic Triumph sat, Whilst Bleeding Hearts around him flowed, For whom Fresh pains he did Create, And strange Tyrannic power he showed; And strange Tyrannic power he showed;
‘After’ by Marston captures the eternal ache of loss, where brief joys transition to lasting sorrow, reflecting on grief’s permanence.
This poem aptly captures the love the speaker has for someone he cannot have. He cannot have her as she is no longer alive. Their relationship ended prematurely, desolating the speaker's soul.
‘Her Initials’ by Thomas Hardy is a deeply poignant poem that wrestles lucidly with grief’s diminishing effect on memories of loved ones.
Ultimately, the poem illustrates a situation in which the speaker loves someone they cannot be with. Thomas Hardy might withhold the details, but the reader can still appreciate the excruciating pain of such a fate. The poet's imagery reflects the way such absence can make the world appear less radiant are far more bleak.
In “Take me anywhere, anywhere;” by Hilda Doolittle, the poet-speaker addresses a lover, expressing the way in which she takes refuge in their affection.
Hilda Doolittle is an expert in writing about her failures in the romance department, and "Take me anywhere, anywhere;" is no exception. In this poem, she captures the feelings of lonely pining and desperation. Her poem reads as if she has lost all reason, and it seems that she would even go back into the past just to be with her lover again.
The ‘Act 2 Prologue’ of Romeo and Juliet uses the chorus to set the stage for the tragic play’s central conflict and passion.
One of the core emotions felt throughout Shakespeare's play is the passionate and even painful longing to love someone you cannot have. Despite the couple's fervent desire to be together, circumstances beyond their control play a part in keeping them separated. Yet that same love persists in motivating them to pursue the other no matter the consequences. Romeo feels as though he "must complain" about her because she is a Capulet, and Juliet sees her love for this Montague as "sweet bait [in] fearful hooks."
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,
‘To—’ explores how an idealized view of love can delude one into believing they are both inadequate and destined to find romance.
The first-person perspective means there is plenty of ambiguity surrounding the woman the speaker pines for. It's strongly implied that whatever feelings they have for her are unreciprocated, leading the speaker to muse over the reasons and solutions for such a dilemma. This sense of unrequited love is threaded throughout the sonnet: in the octave, it is found in the desire to become a fairer man, to earn her affections; the sestet, however, reveals the delusions that follow the pursuit of unattainable love.
‘Poppies’ captures a mother’s heartache for her war-bound son, weaving symbols of memory with the scars of war’s aftermath.
The mother’s love is undiminished, but her son is absent, presumably because he has died although the poem stops short of confirming that fact. The poem aches with unresolved longing and emotional separation, intensified by memory and imagination.
‘Sonnet 131,’ also known as ‘Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,’ is a poem about how the Dark Lady’s beauty moves the speaker. He knows she’s untraditionally beautiful but he doesn’t care!
The emotion that surfaces when one’s love is not reciprocated is evident in the speaker’s words. The last two lines portray his agony though he appears to be unbothered.
‘Yellow Stars and Ice’ captures the unattainable nature of memory, even when it feels tantalizingly close at hand.
The poem is a deep expression of longing, though for who it is not clear. It could be a former lover, friend or family member. It could even be a younger version of themselves. The only thing that is clear is that they cannot reach them, most likely because they are only a memory.
‘Love’s Exchange’ by John Donne explores the anguish of unreciprocated love, portraying intense emotional suffering.
'Love's Exchange' most definitely explores the emotion of loving someone unattainable through its depiction of unrequited love and emotional turmoil. The poem portrays love as a demanding and deceptive entity that offers nothing in return, akin to one-sided love. The speaker's plea to remain ignorant of his beloved's awareness of his pain speaks about the agony of loving someone who may not reciprocate or cannot be reached. Donne's strong imagery and metaphors evoke the longing and despair of desiring someone beyond reach, making the poem a powerful portrayal of the complexities of unrequited love.
‘New Year’ by Duffy melds year-end nostalgia with the ache for a lost love, weaving hope into the fabric of longing.
While the speaker of this poem never explicitly states whether the relationship they are mourning is current or past, it is abundantly clear that the two are separated by a great distance. The speaker's love for someone they cannot have is emphasised as they 'shape' their partner's body out of the empty space which surrounds them. Duffy highlights the emotional distress which completely occupies one's mind when they are possessed with love for someone out of their reach.
Out of the space around me, standing here, I shape
your absent body against mine. You touch me as the giving air.
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