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Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a favorite among many poet enthusiasts. One of her most famous poems “Sonnet 43”, which is also well known as “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” is extremely special to me, as my husband and I read it to each other during our wedding ceremony. To other couples who are in the planning stages of your own wedding, I recommend that you incorporate a favorite love poem into your wedding as well. It’s a wonderful way to express the words in your heart that are sometime hard to find.
Biography
Elizabeth Barrett Browning is well known for her beautiful sonnets. A prolific writer and reviewer in the Victorian period, as well as throughout her lifetime, Browning’s reputation as a poet was at least as great as that of her husband, Robert Browning. But the poems for which she is best know are compiled in the book Sonnets from the Portuguese, which was written for her husband, who had affectionately nicknamed her his "little Portuguese". These are said to be some of the most passionate and memorable love poems in the English language.
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are without parallel in the nineteenth century celebrated poets who became equally famous for their marriage. Still popular more than a century after their deaths, their poetry vividly reflects the unique nature of their relationship.
Sonnet 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 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 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.
Sonnet 14 - If thou must love me, let it be for nought
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
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 pleasant ease on such a day'—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.
Sonnet 38 - First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
And ever since, it grew more clean and white,
Slow to world-greetings, quick with its 'Oh, list,'
When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst
I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,
Than that first kiss. The second passed in height
The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,
Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!
That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown,
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.
The third upon my lips was folded down
In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,
I have been proud and said, 'My love, my own.'
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