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I have a confession to make. I once thought, and perhaps still think Emily Dickinson's "If You Were Coming in the Fall" was my favorite love poem of all time. It's beautiful in its simplicity and the imagery is vivid. It also has a wonderfully musical meter that makes it incredibly pleasing to hear. But it is not the sort of poem that an intellectual should list as their favorite. It's somewhat juvenile stylistically and the symbolism therein is either very obvious or nonexistent. Understanding it didn't take a lot of effort. I don't sound more intelligent for being able to decipher what it means. Essentially, my love of this poem is as if I thought Taylor Swift's lyrics were better than Of Montreal's.

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/emilydickinson/10463

Now, I may have a new favorite love poem. It is T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". Eliot is the more intelligent choice, and I do think his poetry has more depth than Dickinson's. It still has the beautiful flow, vivid imagery, and simplicity that I liked in "If You Were Coming in the Fall", but it's the grown-up version. I read or hear "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", and instead of the warm fuzzy feeling I get from Emily Dickinson's poetry, I get a feeling of a deep stillness, a wisdom that I seldom find in myself. This poem is a love story for adults, for realists, for those who have loved and those who have lost, and for those who are still searching. It's a poem that embodies longing, a motif I've touched on in previous posts. It sees beauty in the everyday sadness of the last glowing embers of a passion. It sees that love is ironic sometimes and that nothing, as unique as it feels to you, is ever really as new to the world as it is to you. In essence, this isn't a love poem at all, not in the traditional sense. Regardless, it's beautiful and perhaps you, dear reader, should take a look.

http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html