While science may tell us that the human heart is concerned with purely circulatory functions, poets – and indeed the rest of us – often feel that the heart is a more emotional organ.

Poets have for centuries written poems about the nature of the human heart and its relation to love and romance. One of the best known of the early English poets, William Shakespeare (1564-1616), gave voice to the universal belief that the heart was the center of human nature in “O, never say that I was false of heart:”

Shakespeare claims in this verse that the heart is the “home of love,” a belief that would persist in poetry.

For poet e.e. cummings (1894-1962), the heart may have been the home of love, but it was a home that could – and did – travel, as he wrote in “i carry your heart with me:”

Although e.e. cummings may have rejoiced in having all his lover’s heart, and in giving freely of his, William Butler Yeats (1865-1928), gave advice to those who would give their hearts to others in “Never Give All the Heart,”

Yeats recommends a bit of mystery in love, not giving all ones heart away.

Whether a poet writes of giving all his heart – or just a little bit – poems about the nature of the heart always find a place in, yes, the heart.