The Breath, Smiles, And Tears Of All My Life

It's Poetry Friday and I'm kickin' it old school today! Did I say that right? Forgive me, I'm 35 and I collect butter containers. Today's poem is the famous How Do I Love Thee? poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. People smarter than me call it Sonnet from the Portuguese 43.


Elizabeth's father forbade his children to marry so she secretly wrote a collection of poems for Robert Browning during their courtship. After they were married, her father disinherited her and that collection of poems, Sonnets from the Portuguese, was eventually published. However, she was a little apprehensive about it. She thought the poems were way too personal to be published. Thankfully, her husband talked her into it. Husbands can be very persuasive sometimes.


Here's Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet from the Portuguese 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways


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.