In 1846 Elizabeth Barrett met Robert Browning. She was a British poet and was 40 years old at the time. Browning was a renowned man of letter. Barrett had injured her spine in a fall and was a semi-invalid. She lived with her father who was overbearing and had actually forbidden any of his children to ever marry.
However, he also encouraged her to pursue writing, and even had 50 copies of her first narrative poem published himself. So Barrett and Browning, when they fell in love, kept their love a secret and ended up eloping to Italy.
Elizabeth wrote many beautiful love poems to her husband, and in 1850 she published 44 of these poems in a collection titled Sonnets from the Portuguese because Browning often called her “my little Portuguese” because of her dark complexion. The most famous of the sonnets if #43. Here it is:
Sonnets from the Portuguese, #43
~Elizabeth Barrett-Browning (1850)~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 everyday’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 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.
Absolutely beautiful, isn’t it? My favorite line is “I love thee freely as men strive for right.”
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