"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" By Elizabeth Barrett Browning are poetic words that have sustained lovers ever since she wrote these words for her husband Robert Browning. He called her his Little Portuguese and when he had these poems published he called the collection, "Sonnets from the Portuguese":
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways? This woman in love is trying to pay tribute to her husband for some especially fine emotion he has awakened in her. Maybe he has been especially kind and considerate and she, ever the poet, knows the only way she can deal with deep felt emotions is poetically. So she, with pencil and paper in hand and deeply furrowed brows and sweaty palms, commences counting the ways.
This first line could have come off badly and would later become an embarrassment to the both of them with its almost sickening sentimentality, but its sincere appeal to all lovers of all time, rescued it from this fate. They deemed it special and therefore it takes its place among one of the most beloved love poems.
"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. . ." In other words she is so much in love she has no way of knowing how much. He is her everything and her love for him is immeasurable. This is no ordinary love affair and it goes beyond mere physical attraction. In this love she loses herself and her reasoning and all that she is and being of an otherworldly nature naturally, she elevates love to its original capacity to be all that her angels and saints - and God - allowed for her.
"I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. . ." Then having thought through her heavenly musings she came somewhat to earth and compared her love to the daily humdrum of living. She knew that the act of simply living brought with it duties and cares and problems and her love was big enough to encompass these. This was no clinging vine of a wife who wanted every minute of his time: she loved him enough to let him be himself.
"I love thee freely, as men strive for right." With these words this sonnet further advances her love for him. She fully understands his circumstances and she is aligned with his cause of justice. She believes in him and his reasons for being on this earth and she wants to truly be a helpmate and not a hindrance. Even, this line stipulates, if I fail to measure up to your ideals, I will not fail to love you because of it. This sonnet and this moment in time is for you, it is not about me.
"I love thee purely, as they turn from praise." She has noticed that he is not happy to hear her tell him so often of his worth and that he clearly has other thoughts in his mind that is far more important to him. Thus, it is far better to tell this poem about my ecstatic feelings for him than to load them onto him.
"I love thee with the passion put to use with my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith." She acknowledges how sad and how unworthy she had felt before he came into her life and as such, she still loves him with that same faith that she had as a child. She has grown up and is aware of more of the world but in her love for him, she prefers the simple dignity and uncomplicated beliefs she had learned as a child.
"I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints." Where as before she had only her saints to love and to guide her, but now that he has entered her world she has transferred her love for them to him. She expects both to understand.
"I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death." She knows that this kind of love will endure and she is so grateful that he has made her life endurable in the latter part of her life; she is free of the fear of death. He is, to hear her explain it in this sonnet, her every reason for living.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, born in 1806 and was a poet of the Romantic Movement. She was a precocious child and at age twelve had written an epic poem. Then she became ill. Some type of lung ailment hampered her throughout her life. She was not a well person but persisted in her studies. She being religious minded, taught herself Hebrew so she could read the Old Testament. She also learned Greek. She later became a Christian.
Her father owned slaves in Jamaica but lived in England. He sent her brothers and sisters to help with the family business, but she did not have to go because of her illness. This she did not approve of. She wrote about her concerns in poetry. Saddened by her brother's death she was depressed and unhappy for several years. Robert Browning noticed her poems and began a correspondence. He was six years younger. They wrote each other almost continuously for about a year and a half. Her father opposed the match. They eloped to Florence. They lived happily for several years. She died June 29, 1861.
Source:
http://www.poets.org/