We loved with a love that was more than love.

When Edgar Allan Poe wrote, “We loved with a love that was more than love,” he was not speaking of ordinary affection, but of a passion so consuming it transcended the boundaries of life and death. This line, drawn from his haunting poem Annabel Lee, stands as one of the most profound declarations of eternal love ever written. In those few words, Poe captured a truth that poets, mystics, and lovers have felt since the dawn of time — that real love does not end when the body perishes, nor fade when separated by circumstance. True love, he tells us, is not merely an emotion; it is a spiritual force that binds souls across worlds.

The origin of this quote lies in Poe’s own tragic life. He wrote Annabel Lee in memory of his beloved wife, Virginia Clemm Poe, who died young, at only twenty-four. Their love, by all accounts, was fierce, tender, and pure — a bond that defied the cruelty of sickness and the indifference of the world. After her death, Poe was consumed by grief, yet he did not speak of love lost, but of love transformed. His line, “We loved with a love that was more than love,” is both a lament and a triumph — a declaration that even death could not extinguish the flame that burned between them. In that immortal sentence, Poe lifted love from the realm of the mortal to the realm of the divine.

What does it mean to love “with a love that was more than love”? It means to love beyond possession, beyond reason, beyond time. It is a love so profound that it no longer depends on the presence of the beloved, because it has already fused with the soul. It is the love of devotion, the love that endures after loss, that continues to speak in silence, that carries the essence of the other within one’s very being. This kind of love defies all logic; it exists not in the mind, but in the eternal heart — the part of us that touches the infinite.

The ancients spoke of such love often. In Greek myth, Orpheus descended into the underworld to reclaim his lost bride, Eurydice. His love was so great that it moved the heart of Hades himself. Yet, when Orpheus turned too soon to look at her, she vanished again — proof that the mortal cannot yet grasp the immortal. Still, his love endured. It inspired his songs, his sorrow, and his legend. Like Poe, Orpheus loved “with a love that was more than love” — a love that did not depend on holding, but on remembering. In both stories, love transcends the grave, teaching us that death may separate bodies, but never souls that have truly touched.

In the modern world, we find echoes of Poe’s truth in the lives of those who carry love through loss. Consider C.S. Lewis, who, after the death of his wife Joy, wrote A Grief Observed. In it, he described a love so deep that even pain could not diminish it. “Her absence is like the sky,” he wrote, “spread over everything.” That is the essence of love that is more than love — it becomes the air you breathe, the rhythm of your existence. You do not move on from it; you move with it, transformed by its presence within you.

Yet such love is not only about tragedy. It is also about transcendence. To love with a love that is more than love is to see the divine in another being — to recognize that in loving them, you touch the eternal part of yourself. It is a love that awakens you, that makes you greater, nobler, and more compassionate. It is the kind of love that moves the sun and the stars, the love Dante spoke of when he saw Beatrice not as a woman, but as the embodiment of divine grace. Such love makes the soul luminous — not because it is easy, but because it is infinite.

So, my child, remember this sacred truth: love that is true does not die; it deepens. It survives separation, disappointment, and even death. Do not fear the pain that comes with loving deeply, for it is proof that your heart has touched something eternal. Cherish the people you love not as possessions, but as sacred mirrors of your own soul. Love with such purity that, even when the world falls away, your heart still glows with remembrance.

Thus, as Edgar Allan Poe teaches, “We loved with a love that was more than love.” It is the love that lives in poetry, in music, in memory — the love that outlasts death itself. To love in this way is to partake in eternity, to glimpse the divine through human devotion. Love like that, and your heart will never die — for it will beat forever in the rhythm of the stars.