"How Do I Love Thee Let Me Count the Ways" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 A portrait of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in her youth. Image from Wikipedia.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian Era, was born on March 6, 1806 in Durham, England. From an early age she demonstrated aptitude for literature: reading novels at the age of six, reading Alexander Pope's translations of Homer at eight, and writing her own Homeric poem at ten. At the age of 15 she began to be ill with a disease that was unknown at the time, causing her to be frail and weak. She began to be addicted to drugs like opium to kill the pain. In 1845 she first met Robert Browning, who became a fan of her book of Poems (1844). She was six years his senior. They were secretly married in 1846 and honeymooned in Paris. Robert spirited his wife to Italy where she remained until her death. In 1849, she gave birth to their son, nicknamed Pen. News of the death of a friend, her father, and a sister made her weak and depressed. She passed away on June 29, 1861.

From the book Light from Many Lamps by Lillian Eichler Watson (1951):

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was supremely, unbelievably happy.

In the fog and chill of London she had been an invalid, almost a recluse. Here in the sunny warmth of Italy—here with her beloved husband, her new life, her new interests—she felt better than she had in years.

Robert Browning had persuaded Elizabeth Barrett to leave her invalid’s couch and elope with him, had brought her to this gentle climate for her health. And climate and love had worked their magic charm. She was still frail and delicate, but she was not an invalid now! She was able to move about, to see the world, to be a true wife and companion to the man she so admired, she so adored. 

…Robert Browning came courting her in Wimpole Street, in London. She was ill then, nervous and distraught—completely dominated by a tyrannical father who had forbidden all his children to marry. But with unfailing devotion, Robert Browning had continued to visit her, to keep her room filled with flowers, to tell her of his love and beg her to marry him.

During this period of emotional strain and indecision, torn between love for Robert Browning and fear of her father’s displeasure, Elizabeth Barrett wrote a sequence of love sonnets. She wrote them in secret, intending them for no eyes but her own.

Sonnet XLIII

“How Do I Love Thee?”

By Elizabeth Barret 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. 

And so, one sunny day in Italy, one enchanted autumn afternoon, Robert Browning read his wife’s secret love sonnets for the first time. He was profoundly moved by their beauty and power, recognizing the unmistakable quality of their genius. They were, he declared, “the finest sonnets since Shakespeare!”

Robert Browning was so impressed with his wife’s love sonnets that he urged her to make them public, to give them to the world. [But first she refused, saying that these where only meant for him alone.]

At last she agreed, though she would have preferred to keep them secret. The poems were published under the title of Sonnets from the Portuguese to conceal their personal nature. [Footnote: Elizabeth Barrett was a pronounced brunette and her husband sometimes called her “my little Portuguese”. This nickname suggested the title for her love sonnets when she put them together in book form.]

Sonnets from the Portuguese has some of the most famous of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems; and “How Do I Love Thee?” is perhaps the best-loved of the series. It was her own favorite, and his, and has been an inspiration to countless lovers since.