How Do I Love Thee? Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How Do I Love Thee?

Rating: 4.0


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 candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a 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.

How Do I Love Thee?
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Carlos Echeverria 08 August 2012

Viewed thru the prism of our post-modern world, I see this love poem full of snark; written on a lark- it ends on a note dark enough to make my skin curl.

35 73 Reply
Kevin Straw 08 August 2012

This is an almost idolatrous love – she equates her love with that of the soul devoted to the search for the divine. She focuses her love from several sources into a pure intense flame of total devotion. What man could stand such a flame I do not know! This is a passionate woman – she does not mention physical love yet one can infer that it is included in this love, though subject to it. This love will continue past the age of sexual desire.

66 24 Reply
Louise Caissie 11 September 2022

I agree with the above comment.

0 1
Gerard Scheuermann 17 October 2011

Anyone who is truly in love with their spouse will take this as their own.

65 16 Reply
Brett Strotman 13 June 2012

Probally one of my favorite poems I've ever heard before in my life. It's a really beautiful and peaceful poem. I love it. A+

40 24 Reply
mumtaz jahan ansari 14 October 2022

Nice poem

0 1 Reply
Sue 24 January 2022

She wrote this poem to God

5 4 Reply
Matin Islam 23 January 2022

Good

1 0 Reply
Sylvia Frances Chan 13 August 2021

and yet: I shall but love thee better after death, so very TRUE because she felt her approaching death. God was with her!

4 0 Reply
Sylvia Frances Chan 13 August 2021

Just wanna show you all HOW very beautiful and touching are her words....the words of one of the greatest female poets, one of the gretest Poetesses, and she herself could not walk according to what she ever wished!

6 2 Reply
Close
Error Success