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 every day'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.
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Great poem
From guest Shannon (contact)
This is such a wonderful poem but im doing an english essay for school and wondered if there is any hidden meaning in the lines "I love thee to the level of everydays most quiet need, by sun and candlelight" ~(: -
Nice
Very Nice sonnet. I have started counting the way to love. -
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kool
From guest sofiya (contact)
amazing that a wife can love her so much, i am only studying and i always thought this could never happen. now i think it does happen -
OMG! I love her! I can't get enough of her poetry!
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For many years one of the most famous poems in the English Language..
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Written for her husband-to-be Robert during their courtship. A wonderful romantic declaration of love. Beautiful.
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From guest Rebekah (contact)
It takes my breath away. To love and be able to express it so well in such a beautiful way is such a gift. -
From guest suseann
From Suseann;
Passion verily seeps in rivers in this piece. Such proclamation in honesty of love felt.I am green with envy That I myself couldn't have expressed with such passions as this in verse.varied rhyme scheme change over is unique and pleasant in this sonnet. -
Love conquers all
From guest Sheri (contact)
I am experiencing this kind of love, and he loves me the same. A love so deeply intricate and finite, like a dying to self and complete surrender, it's the atomic and expansive intertwining of souls. -
ACT OF INTERGRITY
From guest IBEGBU EMMANUEL (contact)
this love poem is great and perhaps the best i've ever seen or heard.i always like to read it. the writer possessed a very good creative mind.i am being move by the line;I LOVE THEE TO THE LEVEL OF EVERY DAY'S MOST QUIET NEED. -
The words bring out the quiet intensity of love. It is almost like someone she has grown up with, and there is the warm domestic picture she paints "by sun and candle-light". So much love is unbearable that she has to mention "death". It is a beautiful love poem.
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Very beautiful
I love thee to the level of every day'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
very creative and her flow and mete are so perfect
so much thoughts she used -
Compare with Romans Chapter 8 verses 31 - 39 (Bible)
From guest Edwin (contact)
I am similarly smitten by these heartfelt words, fellow admirers may want to compare similarities with the apostle Paul's great biblical passage (Chap 8 vv 31-39) in the book of Romans on an even greater love - God's love for His children. Interestingly in my version of the Bible (New International Version)it also begins with a rhetorical question - If God is for us, who can be against us? -
wow
This poem was very detailed ot understand . The lovely similies and metaphors she urse. I love the style this infulence me to keep writing. I'll say my fav. line was
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 every day's
She compared it to a mesasure. How creative. TO the level of everyday...... that is so deep. You could feel the love she has as she tells and show.
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 every day's
Shee loves this man with everything she has. She's devoted to him. WHen she says I love these with the smiles breath..... I think she means with al the stuff that happen she loves him to. hmmm when she says love him better after death. i think that was very deep to the mind. BETTER after death.. hmmm... for life it full of tear and happeness but death u don't feel any pain and he's her love so i think she means she will be oh so very happy. -
From guest anna-maria (contact)
its the best poem i know since i am 14 its my favorite. and i personally think everything which is written in it is true. sometimes i will find this person. -
poem
From guest nenita (contact)
I know who I have loved through a number of years silently because I would have recited this poem to this person the first time I realized of my feeling and now after 16, 17 years later. I think , it's enough waiting, even for a romantic! -
Magnificent
This is very beautiful Sonnet, I intend to read more of her poems so that I too can improve with my Sonnets. -
just beautiful!
This has to be one of the great love sonnets of all time, even above those of the Italian masters or the Great Bard himself. Robert must have felt himself humbled by such a heartfelt yet sincere outpuring of his wife's devotion. -
ive read this beauty when i was so very young
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I wish I'd memorized this as a lad
It's so very beautiful. Fourteen lines, is that too much to ask, to remember? The formula is great: ask a question, and commence a list, first line:
rhyme scheme
1.A
2.B
3.B
4.a
5.A
6.B
7.B
8.A
9.C
10.a
11.C
12.D
13.C
14.D
Maybe my favorite line, "I love thee freely, as men strive for right." Her declaration you can feel it in your heart. It evokes the great political struggles for freedom of the 19th century.
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Superb!
One of the best, and certainly most often quoted sonnets in the English lanugague! -
This is my favorite poem in the world
This is one of my favorite poems especially with the fact that it was written to Robert Browning in a faith of love. She so loved him that she had to put it in to words. The I love thee byt the depth and breath of her love says it all. -
brilliant
I was introduced to EBB in 10th grade Literature class. We had a choice of poems to memorize for an oral presentation and I chose this one because of it's flowing quality and moving ambience. I've been a fan of Elizabeth's and her husband, Robert since. -
How anyone could read this and not enjoy the words that flow so beautifully down the page is beyond me. This is the stuff that makes women sigh.
♥ Kimberly -
By far the most beautiful love sonnet ever written. Browning was a most amazing poet who will live forever. Patricia
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i am doing a project at school about EBB and i need an analaysis of this poem. can anyone help as i am having some trouble myself?
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I have this poem in a book somewhere... and i absolutely love it! Browning writes such beautiful poetry, and this one is probably my favorite that she did. I have read it over and over and can't get enough of it.
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I love her poetry. It was only after my best friend died that I truly understood her words in this poem. I love her work and I will truly read after her.
much love
heather -
I have EBB's 'Sonnets from the Portuguese'...deep theatrical sigh I LOVE my EBB...
I so love the sonneteers...thanks much for featuring EBB!!!
Wanda
Edited on Nov 04, 12:27 because ''. -
Love is multifarious and there is no dearth of a way to love. It shall stand as a prominant way when the manner you love really significant of love...deep love. Love need not be procrastinated searching a way to love. Love itself is a communication. communication by looks....communication by words. ...communication by touch.....so many ways of communicating love. Love can you not if you fail to communicate.
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Geez... I could never remember who wrote those famous lines "How do I love thee Let me count the ways" Now I will be sure to remember it. For I love this poem.
OD
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I like this poem I like the way it starts with a rhetorical question which is answered (she does this herself in the rest of the poem ) I like the way she uses measurement to describe something immeasurable. I like her use of enjambement through this piece which works effectively This is an unusual sonnet because the subject changes on the last line rather than half way through (her subject changes by her tense changing). This is a very good poem
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This is my high-school-days most loved poem. I always say this poem whenever I'm thinking of my crush...hehe! This is great! This is so touching!
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One of my all time favorites, one i just simply love to read every time...read through the ages of time, and each time it implies a more significant meaning...
How Do I Love Thee? Let me count the ways.
an opening line that sets to to show HOW...
and each line is portrays a very potent way of love,
it is magnificent by all sense of love poems,
and the ending is by far the perfect ending...
...and if God choose
I shall but love thee better after death.
It is just magnificent, and the beast
just gets reclaimed, and soley subjugated
partially from this and many other
versified writing, past and present.
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perfection
My favorite lines in this poem have always been:
"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 have loved this poem since I first read it at about the age of 11 years old....but, I only fully understood it at about the age of twenty-five.
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Beauty!!!
"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."
this is very clever thought.its a beauty!!!
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very nice
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height"
O! There are so many ways, it’s a very sweet poem
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