5 Classic Love Poems (Writing Exercise Challenge).

5 Classic Love Poems (Writing Exercise Challenge).

Hey guys I came up with a writing exercise based around some Classic Love Poems. I chosen 5 poems to be your inspiration and your objective is to write one like the poem you choose - using the same title and written in the same manner. The poems chosen are all rhyme and rhymed poems would be the preference of this exercise. As far as Form/Style of poems, you can write a Sonnet, an Ode, Ballad, or any one of the forms that employ repetition and rhyme.

The 5 poems are;

"A Thing Of Beauty" (Keats)

"How Do I Love Thee" (Browning)

Sonnet 18 - "Shall I Compare Thee" (Shakespeare)

"She Walks in Beauty" (Byron)

"She Was a Phantom of Delight" (Wordsworth)

--------------------------------

A Thing Of Beauty:

Use the first line of the given poem to start your poem or the first part of the first line - mainly "A Thing of Beauty" and work form there - building your poem around that first line you put together based around the original. Here is the poem;

A Thing Of Beauty

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.
Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end!
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

- John Keats

---------------------------

How Do I Love Thee:

Use the first part of the given poem to start your poem - mainly "How Do I Love Thee." You can use "How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count They Ways" or "How Do I Love Thee? I Cannot Count The Ways." and work form there - building your poem around that first line you put together based around the original. Here is the poem;

How Do I Love Thee

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 everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
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.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

--------------------------------------

Shall I Compare Thee:

Use the first line of the given poem to start your poem or the first part of the first line - mainly "Shall I Compare Thee" and work form there - building your poem around that first line you put together based around the original. Here is the poem;

Shall I Compare Thee ~ Sonnet XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou are more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

- by William Shakespeare

-------------------------------------

She Walks In Beauty:

Use the first line of the given poem to start your poem or the first part of the first line - mainly "She Walks In Beauty" and work form there - building your poem around that first line you put together based around the original. Here is the poem;

She Walks In Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

- Lord Byron

-----------------------------------------

She Was a Phantom of Delight:

Use the first line of the given poem to start your poem - mainly "She Was a Phantom of Delight" and work form there - building your poem around that first line you put together based around the original. Here is the poem;

She Was a Phantom of Delight

She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

I saw her upon a nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveler between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warm, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright,
With something of angelic light.

~ William Wordsworth

---------------------------------------

ATTENTION PARTICIPANTS POST YOUR POEMS IN THE SUBMIT POEMS SECTIONS AND POST THE URL HERE, SO WE MAY BE ABLE TO COMMENT THEM.

Really great stuff, just a small pointer though, the "Sonnet XVIII" is not a love poem. It is kind of friendship one.
but dear Mr.Gardener, fantastic thread as usual.g
but as a challenge too classy for us P&Q er

Great challenge, Robert:

http://www.best-love-poems.com/poems.php?id=1229472

Lord Byron's She Walks In Beauty is probably one of the most beautiful sonnet that has ever been written..
Great thread dear Robert..

The whales die in this water.
and all the good threads

She Was a Phantom of Delight

http://www.poems-and-quotes.com/misc/poems.php?id=1229673

How Do I Love Thee

http://www.poems-and-quotes.com/misc/poems.php?id=1229674

Thanks.