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 candlelight.
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.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), English poet wrote Sonnets From The Portuguese (1850);
I always loved literature, maybe thats one of the reasons I had a BA in English literature. Yet I never liked poetry, very few would really touch and amuse me but still I was forced to study it and not like it. I have a good collection of books from different eras, the 18th and 19th century work of poets and writers. I never thought of Shakespear as a genius, he was sure talented but to me most of his work followed the same line of the rise and fall of tragic heros.
Since I have given up on reading literature for a long period of time now as I switched to the marketing and branding lane and I am more into that for like a decade now, yet every now and then I find myself starring at the book shelves in my room and wondering what really happened to the old me, I used to love it, enjoy it the most, I used to write analysis about how I feel about certain lines in James Joyce and D.H.Lawrence work and smile when someone believe that Bernard Shaw is nothing but a modern Shakespeare as thats how I used to say it too. Utopia, Brave New World for Huxely and The Waste Land for T.S. Eliot, were just my favorite. I was really so into that, but that was long time ago!
Anyway as I am trying lately to try and buy anything that might make me happy -yeah stupid me believing that this is the way for my 2009 pursuit of happiness scheme-. I came to reconsider the idea of going back to reading literature, and since I have this huge amount of novels, I will give it a try and pick any book without looking at its title and just open any page and read the first lines of its 2nd or 3rd paragraph and if it made me really eager enough to continue I will have it by my bed side so I can grab it easily and read again.
I picked a plain white book without caring much for its title and I found it to be a small collection of poetry from the 18th century, poetry written by women in a time that they were slightly able and allowed to create, write under their own name. I remember reading before for Elizabeth Browning, as I mentioned before I didnt like poetry that much but every now and then I did allow myself to enjoy few lines. I believe it was merely luck to pick up this book and open this same page inwhich I found these lines about her describing how she loves probably her guy, to me I would describe loving my child this way instead, but thats only me. And since I am not in love currently and -uh never say never- but I am more rational in a way now and dont have stars in my eyes, but one cant deny the lines are so touching, coming from a woman who can express herself right is just amazing.
I loved the most the following lines :
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.
Well that is just deadly romantic and so "uh" okay I am not going to make fun of it I am too cynical these days, apparently I lost faith in the so-called love and since I am in this condition now its better to just shut up.
Anyway I enjoyed it thats why I am posting it, its one of the best lines written about loving someone.
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