The poem
XLIII
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.
I love this poem. It's beautiful. I love Elizabeth Browning. I read her biography, what an amazing woman. I love how this poem puts love into the only words possible.
I absolutely love this poem, beautifully written!
This sonnet from the Portuguese, subtitled sonnet 43 authored by Elizabeth Barret Browning is indeed i can say, a very beautiful poem that everybody must put attention and consideration. the sonnet shows how deep is the love of the author to her husband, Robert Browning that according to what i have learned, Elizabeth wrote the poem dedicated to her husband. she used the poem to show how she loves her husband very…
Read the whole commentThis sonnet from the Portuguese, subtitled sonnet 43 authored by Elizabeth Barret Browning is indeed i can say, a very beautiful poem that everybody must put attention and consideration. the sonnet shows how deep is the love of the author to her husband, Robert Browning that according to what i have learned, Elizabeth wrote the poem dedicated to her husband. she used the poem to show how she loves her husband very much. the repetition of the statement "I love thee... connotes the strenght of her love, that her love is pure and sacred as she capitilized first letter of some words like Ideal, Right, Beauty, etc. that when the scyth of death will come and seperate them she will still continue loving her love though they are in other part of life. another, since Elizabeth was a crippled woman, it is understood according to readings that she wasn't able to make love with her husband that why to let Robert feels her love, she finally wrote the poem. i'm not telling that all the informations are true but it is only based on my humble understanding and you may correct it if it's wrong. thanks
It's absolutely gorgeous. It really lifts your heart when reading it. This women shows true devotion and love to whoever she writes to. (Im guessing her husband Robert Browning)
It's amazing how much we give thought to LOVE. But it's poems like this one that help us to say the things that we feel but can seem to find the words to say. Obviously as a poet Ms. Browning found those words, but interestingly it was the same thing that moves us to feel love. A dear one! If you have someone like that in your life you do well to read and thoughtfully give attention to Sonnet 43. Then you be able to SAY "How Do I Love Thee?".
This is the most beautiful poem on romantic love that I have ever read. I especially love the segment where she wrote, "Smiles, tears of all my life. And if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."
Im sorry to tell you, but, the date of birth of Elizabeth Barrett Browning is actually 1806 not 1809 and she was born in Durham, England.
I am researching this wonderful poem for a school project, but I am confused by just one line:
"I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints"
What does this mean? Can anyone tell me? Or just make a guess? Thanks! :)
hi this poem is fanastic,i am in faculty of arts english dep in alex university ....i need more notes about this poem and analysis...but it`s a truly love poem
This poem shows me how deeply a woman can love a man. It is indeed sanitly to have that ability to love someone so completely! My favorite poem. I can only dream of finding that level of love here on this planet, earth! But, I can dream....
i think it is a nice poem. by what exactly does the third line mean by the my soul can reach?
it would very much help if i acquired this answer, i need it for my 8th grade english project.
I am doing research on this poem and absolutely love it! This poem is exactly what I was looking for.
To those who wonder as to the deeper meaning of certain phrases in this Sonnet I would suggest that this is not a commentary on love generally, but an expression of deep personal feeling issuing from the background of the author's life circumstances and physical condition. To understand it all fully would require a knowledge of the poet's life - I can't think however that reading the sonnet inspires me personally to…
Read the whole commentTo those who wonder as to the deeper meaning of certain phrases in this Sonnet I would suggest that this is not a commentary on love generally, but an expression of deep personal feeling issuing from the background of the author's life circumstances and physical condition. To understand it all fully would require a knowledge of the poet's life - I can't think however that reading the sonnet inspires me personally to want to spend hours of research to be able to accurately speculate as to the innermost secrets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's psyche.
What this poem does to me is to remind me that words well used can be as musical as the best song, and not for nothing is a sonnet called a sonnet. The form lends itself beautifully to the crafting of words.
If only an appreciation of the beauty of human creation epitomised in this art form and in this particular poem could be planted within the hearts and minds of all humans this world would be a more fulfilled and fulfilling place.
The stunning beauty of the piece is not that it is about love, but that it is born from love.
If you can appreciate this sonnet, even without understanding it fully, you are well on your way to loving your fellow human being, and therefore yourself and, unlike Mrs Browning, would not have to hope for death to bring the possibilty of perfect love.
To Marion, Australia, 5th March
The lost saints are Browning's mother and brother whom she has lost probably because her father has forbidden them to stay in touch with her. He never spoke to her after she married Robert Browning, the famous poet, and it would be realistic to think that the others in the family would not dare to contradict him - after all this was Victorian times!
I have read this poem many times and everytime I read it I just can't help but love it more and more each time. This is a very wonderful poem and its so beautiful...
This poem is a very wonderful piece I like it so much.
but I have a question here which lines or phrases or sentences reflect the poet's gendre??
my love is that of the deep blue sea and the heights of the highest mountians. it is endless a space and time allows. i love just like this poem and more than even words can express. it is infinity times infinity(pie) love my marlyn
To Gordon Brown from United Kingdom, i am with you 100%. if only those in charge could appreciate, and endeavour to hold within themselves, that kind of love. reading this i couldn't help but feel sad. relationships are beautiful and wonderful things, and, after reading about such a love as that, i couldn't help but long for the same passion, the same depth of feeling felt by Elizabth Browning. also, being somewhat…
Read the whole commentTo Gordon Brown from United Kingdom,
i am with you 100%. if only those in charge could appreciate, and endeavour to hold within themselves, that kind of love.
reading this i couldn't help but feel sad. relationships are beautiful and wonderful things, and, after reading about such a love as that, i couldn't help but long for the same passion, the same depth of feeling felt by Elizabth Browning.
also, being somewhat of a poet/writer myself, this poem is an inspiration to me. i love reading such works as this. they help me to be able to write. but they are also great in another way. its my view that poems written in the victorian age have a certain degree of depth and meaning that poems these days just don't possess. people may disagree, but that's just my view.
i love this poem. at least there, we can all agree.
I think this poem is ridiculous and disjointed. It is awkward to read and has little if any flow. Im sure you think i am just to average to understand it's intricacies, but i assure you it's not so powerful nuiances are not lost on me. i simply do not like it. i think this poem is desperately trying to be good, but pulling a bunch of words out of a hat and stringing them together in some semblance of order does not always make a good poem.
i just can't get enough!!!!!its just like "as i walk through life"...............
it was a good poem
what were the effects of the poem?
it is the most beautiful love poem that I have ever read. I just like it.
its an absolutely wonerful poem but i dont know how to analyse it for a school project.pls help
This poem was very well written but i dont know how to analyze it for a project for school.
I'm not the greatest of poetry experts, nor am i that interested in poetry at all, yet this poem i feel is one of the best Elizabeth has ever written! This poem really shows the way she was feeling at the time when she was in love with Robert Browning. Not only this but i believe there to be a real sense of victory underneath.
The battle of overcoming her ailment adnd really becoming a true poet; to be accepted by the other poetry writers.
Her last words before her death were "Our lives are held by God", just like in the last line of this poem "...if God chose, i shall but love thee better after death", God has control over us all. Its kind of like this poem is a story of her life.
I CAN RELATE TO THIS ODE TO LOVE, BECAUSE THAT IS HOW I LOVE MY ALVIN, SO DEEPLY, SO SWEETLY, SO PURELY, SO FREELY. THERE IS TRUTH IN LOVE, LIVE AND LOVE, THEY ARE ONE.
I feel Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a great Poet!She expresses the theme to be more overwhelming.The love she feels is an everlasting feeling, which she says might last past death. I think it was sad the way she died in Robert Brownings arms, but this poem says it all how the two were in love and how much she adored him. I disagree with all the people who will give bad critique on her poems because I feel the same way she feels about loving a man.
well, the first time I read this poem it really touch the inner romantic side of me...the way she (Elizabeth) expresses her true love to her husband Robert is a very unique way and that is through a poem...it creates an extension of her love to him....but love is really immesurable!!!
Even though you are not in a reationship this poem will drive you to fall in love with the first guy or gal you will meet after reading this!!! Elizabeth Barrett Browning is great!!!
I don't want to rain on anyone's parade but Mrs. Browning actually wrote this poem before she even met Mr. Browning...so this poem which is not towards him...is especially amazing due to the fact that she wrote it in hopes of finding a true love just like it. It was like a fantasy!
i thought the poem was really sweet but the other dude was right! she wrote the poem befor she met her hubby. (im fluent in 5 languages)
bonjour mes petite
Elizabeth Browning has described so many extraordinary ways in which she loved her husband. She loved him to the depth and breadth and height that her soul can reach. This tells me she wanted to express a wide range of space covered with love. I’m not sure I understand what is meant by … “when feeling out of sight for the ends of being and ideal grace.” It could be that Elizabeth cannot see past her love, it…
Read the whole commentElizabeth Browning has described so many extraordinary ways in which she loved her husband. She loved him to the depth and breadth and height that her soul can reach. This tells me she wanted to express a wide range of space covered with love. I’m not sure I understand what is meant by … “when feeling out of sight for the ends of being and ideal grace.” It could be that Elizabeth cannot see past her love, it consumes her to a point of no return. She referred to loving him in candle light and sun, she loved her husband day and night. She loved him without shame (‘as men strive for right’? – Does this mean that while people try to keep from being wrong and prove that they are right in an argument, that she still loves him?). She loves him purely, while others settle into a pattern where they take love for granted. The purity in her love helps her to see it clearly all the time. She mentions ‘putting passion to use’, which we could all use more of. I think the general moral of this poem is to have a higher love. Commitment that you are not ashamed to be proud of, love that remains until death, even though we’ve forgotten how and why we love, we should always try to remember and 'count the ways'.
"I love thee freely, as men strive for Right"
He does not make her love him or stay with him,
she does this on her own, thus a freedom to love whom ever she wishes. She loves him passionately, as man is pationate about doin what is right. Both striving or working for what one wants. Am I correct? Is there anyone else who can better explain this part of the poem to me?
I hear some say that the poem is about her love toward her husband and others say it has nothing to do with him at all. Does anyone know when the poem was acually written?
yes, yes we all agree that it is a truely powerful love poem, but I personally think there is something that goes just a little deeper than that. Browning talks of the fact that she loves, whoever the poem is addressed to "to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach", implying that the pome is not only addressed to her husband Robert Browning, but also to God, she also seems to be midly critical of the fact that she still loves purely whilst other men turn away from Praising him, for whatever reason. This would also explain why she would love him, better after death, because she would be closer to him.
I think I know why they fell in love. It is because they shared a sole. Anabell Lee and Robert were of the same sole. "Hope sustains most of manking" and also " after the event even the fool is wise".
Back in the late 50's when I was in high school, I use to listen to WGN Chicago at night while waiting to fall asleep. There was a program called " The Torch Hour ". It was an hour of Poems and the host would start off with Brownings poem How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I would think of what the poem was trying to say and I would wonder if I would or could ever feel what was being said. For the last 20 years I finally was able to say I get it. It was the passion of feeling body and soul to ones partner. I have been Blessed.
Richard
Robert Browning was born in a suberb of London called Camberwell. He was a poet and had access to an extensive library of more than 6000 volumes. In 1844 he became an admirer of the poems of Elizabeth Barrettand began corresponding with her by letter. They were married in 1846 and the poem published and printed four years later. That makes it most probable considering their relation that the poem was indeed to her…
Read the whole commentRobert Browning was born in a suberb of London called Camberwell. He was a poet and had access to an extensive library of more than 6000 volumes. In 1844 he became an admirer of the poems of Elizabeth Barrettand began corresponding with her by letter. They were married in 1846 and the poem published and printed four years later.
That makes it most probable considering their relation that the poem was indeed to her husband.
The striking thing about the poem is that it is not a love poem. Love is filled with pain as Shakespeare and other bards frequently point out. This poem is of unadulterated true affect that is not related to selfishness and that takes it beyond the tawdy love of delusion or a "being in love" sentiment.
The "depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace." puts that affect beyond a mundane plain with her experiencing that affect beyond the actual state of selfish being almost upon a transcendntal level of Ideal grace."
It is a great and perhaps unequalled poem of this nature and an example of what all human creatures are capable in a true profound relationship in which there are not two proponents but a single union at least on her part.
Browning became an admiror of Elizabeth's Barretts poetry in 1844. He began corresponding with her by letter. This was the start of one of the world's most famous romances. Their courtship lasted until 1846 when they were married. The couple moved to Italy that same year and had a son, Pen, later in 1849.
I NEED HELP ON FINDING TEXTUAL FEATURES AND DISCROUSES IN THE POEM!!PLEASE EMAILME!!PLEASE HELP ME!!!THANKS,
DANIELLE
i am studying in a university and have to comment on a poem.i need to discuss the author's use of language and the effect that it achieves.since this is the only poem i love the most,i decided to work on this poem.
this sonnet 43 is all about the love of Elizabeth browning in her husband. He can give everything to her husband. i love reading it.
How does He love me? Let me count His ways. He loves me to the depth and breadth and height His soul's almighty reach, when His figure out of sight. For the end of my ways, and my new being. He loves me to the level of everyday's Most unknown need, by salt and light. He loves me freely, over men's rules and curse. He loves me purely, as they preach and praise. He loves me with His passion for world to abuse. His…
Read the whole commentHow does He love me? Let me count His ways.
He loves me to the depth and breadth and height
His soul's almighty reach, when His figure out of sight.
For the end of my ways, and my new being.
He loves me to the level of everyday's
Most unknown need, by salt and light.
He loves me freely, over men's rules and curse.
He loves me purely, as they preach and praise.
He loves me with His passion for world to abuse.
His comfort for my griefs, and strength for my unseen faith.
He loves me with a love I dare not to lose.
On His lonely journey, - He loves me with His breath,
Smiles, tears, and His painful agony! - For God already chose
that He shall love me beyond death.
After reading her poem, I feel like we should speak in this way. What a magical poem!
i think the poem is too ideal...but i love it..it makes me fall in love all over again..the sonnet "if thou must love me" by elizabeth barrett browning is also great..hope you read it also!!!..^-^
I hate this poem
"Read not such poems with the closed mind of regular person. Read forth with intensity and great gravity. For the narrow pathways of life enclose one into a rut of depression and our only hope, our passenger of light is to emerge anew covered in the spring morning dew."
-Sir Gina Gale
This something I tell my AP English Students to encourage their little minds.
Cheers.
Re: comments 33 and 34 - not true. Barrett and Browning were introduced after communicating by letter for several years, in 1835 by a man named Kenyon. "Sonnets from the Portuguese" was written in 1850.
Am a literature student studying in Mauritius n by my opinion this sonnet truly explores the essence of "TRUE LOVE"
wow
wow...this poem made me refrain from commiting suicide. .it showed me that love is out there. and that maybe someone does love me!
elizabeth
i love that poem.the poem shows a woman deeply love
the man
nice poem
this poem is very nice. Iam mongolia. Iam learnig english. My spoken enlish teacher is Mr Bob. He taught this poem me. I like this poem. Thank you teacher for me taught poem