How Do I Love Thee?

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How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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.

Renaissance poets were especially fond of expressing love in sonnets, most notably Shakespeare, who famously compared his love to a rose, a summer's day, perfume, snow, and various species of birds. Romantic era love poems have become some of the most enduring, and oft-repeated, poems ever written in English. Consider this Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem, the first line of which has become so well-known as to be considered the classic love poem cliché:

How better to express one’s feelings of love and passion than through reading and sharing a poem? Countless suitors have used verse to woo a love interest, expressing feelings of desire and longing. "Many love poems are actually poems of seduction," writes Marilyn Hacker in the Poets.org exhibit "Eros and the Lyric Imagination: Poems of Love." There are numerous anthologies devoted to love poems, and thousands of websites.

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5860