by Tessa Dick

Created on: September 12, 2008

Love is Eternal: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's best love poems

Elizabeth Barrett Browning composed many love poems for her husband Robert Browning, both before and after the two poets were married, and 64 of them were collected in a book titled Sonnets from the Portuguese. Born and educated in England in the first half of the 1800s, Browning uses language that seems quaint and outdated, but her figures of speech still sound fresh and inspiring. Her love poems still touch the heart. Perhaps the best known of them is "How do I love thee?" (Sonnets from the Portuguese, Number 63). It uses hyperbole to convey the immensity of her love for him. Although the first line speaks of counting, the metaphors that she employs speak of infinite love, which cannot be counted.

"How do I love thee?" (Sonnets from the Portuguese, Number 63)

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.

Browning suggests that her love for her husband has restored her lost faith and soothed all the emotional wounds of her childhood. "In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. / I love thee with a love I seemed to lose" (lines 10 and 11). She loves him with her soul (line 3), she loves him freely (line 7) and she loves him purely (line 8). These religious ideas spring naturally from the faithful Christian that she was.

In a less religious vein, she asks her husband to love her properly and enduringly in "If thou must love me" (Sonnets from the Portuguese, Number 14). She wants him to love her for the sake of love, and not for any transitory quality that she might lose or change. She elevates love to the highest value in life, and even to the highest value after death.

"If thou must love me" (Sonnets from the Portuguese, Number 14)

If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile her look her way
Of speaking gently for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of

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