🌈The Dead Poets Society🌈 – Elizabeth Barrett – Browning

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“How Do I Love Thee?” is one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s most famous poems. It was written in 1845 during her unconventional and clandestine courtship with Robert Browning, who was 11 years her junior, and whom she later married.

It is the 43rd sonnet in a collection titled “Sonnets from the Portuguese”, and is considered one of the most passionate and enduring love poems in the English language. It expresses her profound and boundless love for him.

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 candle-light.
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