Love Poems 1916

October 31, 2016 7:59 AM

For a game that I'm going to be playing I'm looking for love poems which will have been reasonably well known in Ireland in 1916/ 1917.

So far I She Walks in Beauty and the first verse of Oh, come to me in dreams my love.

I would like the poems to not be obviously about a man (they may well be, but I would prefer if that wasn't obvious in the text) and about the beauty of love, nothing cynical.

Bonus points if the poet isn't obviously described as male within the poem (male writers are fine.)

posted by Laura_J to Writing & Language (9 answers total)

Palgrave's Golden Treasury of Poetry is probably a good place to start looking. There is a scanned version over on Google Books of the 1861 edition.

Easy version: go for some of Shakespeare's sonnets, sprinkle a few of Robert Herrick's poems in there, and add a dollop of Percy Shelley and obviously "How do I love Thee" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
posted by kariebookish at 8:18 AM on October 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

How about The Brow of Nefin, or one of the other Love Songs of Connacht, as collected and translated by Douglas Hyde & published in 1904.
posted by misteraitch at 8:46 AM on October 31, 2016

A Selection from the Love Poetry of William Butler Yeats
posted by baseballpajamas at 9:42 AM on October 31, 2016

I first thought of the old love song "The Water is Wide", which led me indirectly to A Collection of Ballads, 1910 where you might find lots of things that will help.
posted by fritley at 9:46 AM on October 31, 2016

I found this page with some of Yeats' "early" love poems. Unfortunately, there are no dates, but Yeats was quite established by 1916 (he won the Nobel Prize in 1923), so I would think poems labeled as early are probably safe. This page has poems by Yeats published in 1899.
posted by FencingGal at 9:50 AM on October 31, 2016

Response by poster: Thank you - these are great
posted by Laura_J at 7:14 PM on October 31, 2016

The English poetry canon hasn't really been re-evaluated much between 1916 and now, so really this is pretty much the same as asking for famous love poems written before 1916. Of which there are a lot. The first ones that spring to mind:

A red, red rose (Burns)

Any of Shakespeare's more well known sonnets. Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?") is probably the best known, but you have a lot of options there.

Marvell, To His Coy Mistress

John Donne, To His Mistress Going to Bed
posted by phoenixy at 7:28 PM on October 31, 2016

Best answer: I think that in 1916-1917 in Ireland the most widely known love poems would be ones set to music: the Victorian tradition of parlour ballads that were sung around a piano at home would still be going strong (there are quite a few quoted in the works of James Joyce, for example).

Moore's Melodies were poems by Thomas Moore which were set to Irish airs and were once hugely popular - Moore was considered to be Ireland's national poet in the 19th century, though only a few of his songs are remembered now.
Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms is a love poem. (Most of the best known of Moore's poems tend to be nostalgic or patriotic: The Minstrel Boy, The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls, The Last Rose of Summer, Oft in the Stilly Night etc.)

I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls is from the opera The Bohemian Girl by the 19th century Irish composer Michael Balfe with words by the English writer Alfred Bunn. Again, this was hugely popular in its day and versions are still produced nowadays. Text I Dreamt I dwelt in Marble Halls

Down By the Salley Gardens is a Yeats poem from 1889 which was set to a traditional tune in 1909 and became very well known.
posted by Azara at 11:58 PM on October 31, 2016

Many of the Metaphysical Poets were "rediscovered" in the early 20th century, so I would probably avoid those.
posted by kariebookish at 2:27 AM on November 1, 2016