Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on March 6, 1806, and more than two centuries later, her words still feel startlingly intimate. While many know her name, what endures most is her voice: earnest, passionate, unguarded in its devotion.
Her love story with Robert Browning has become literary legend because of letters exchanged in secret that show their affection growing through words long before they met in person. And when she finally published Sonnets from the Portuguese, she gave the world some of the most enduring love poetry in the English language.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning did not write small feelings. She wrote love that felt eternal. Love that felt sacrificial. Love that demanded language large enough to hold it. So on her birthday, it feels fitting to return to one of her most famous sonnets, a poem that continues to be quoted at weddings, in letters, and in quiet moments of reflection.
How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(This poem is in the Public Domain)
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.
There is something fearless about this poem. It does not hedge or soften or apologize for devotion. And perhaps that’s why it endures. So on her birthday, let’s remember that some words outlive us — especially the ones written with the whole soul.
