I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. 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 was one of the most popular poets of the Victorian era. She was born in County Durham, England in and spent much of her childhood in Herefordshire, and although she received no formal education, she read widely at home and was well-versed in the classics.
She was plagued by health problems and spent much of her life inside the family home, with her father unwilling to let her see many people. She would, however, begin a celebrated correspondence with the young poet Robert Browning in , following a fan letter he sent her declaring his admiration for her volume Poems. The couple went to live in Italy and had several children.
The poem is a famous one — or at least its first line is — but the poet who wrote it is less famous now as a poet in her own right, and more familiar as the husband of Robert Browning, whom she courted through a series of extraordinary love letters in the s. It was not always this way.
He ended up disinheriting his daughter. Elizabeth and Robert exchanged hundreds of love letters over the two years from In them you get a clear idea of just how much they adored one another. Take this excerpt from Elizabeth in , near the time of their elopement:.
I have come back to live a little for you. I love you - I bless God for you - you are too good for me, always I knew. Elizabeth was close to 40 years of age when she broke free from the control of her father. You can imagine her pent up strength of feeling and sense of relief. She went on to give birth to a son and was happily married for 16 years, until her death in It has a female narrator, which was highly unusual for the time. This sonnet helped kick-start many more on the theme of modern Victorian love, from a woman's perspective.
Note the emphasis is on the repetition and reinforcement of the speaker's love for someone; there is no mention of a specific name or gender, giving the sonnet a universal appeal. The first line is unusual because it is a question asked in an almost conversational manner—the poet has challenged herself to compile reasons for her love, to define her intense feelings, the ways in which her love can be expressed.
There then follows a repetitive variation on a theme of love. To me this conjures up an image of a woman counting on her fingers, then compiling a list, which would be a very modern, 21st century thing for a female to do. This poem comes from another era however, a time when most women were expected to stay at home looking after all things domestic, not writing poems about love. The second, third and fourth lines suggest that her love is all encompassing, stretching to the limits, even when she feels that her existence— Being— and God's divine help— Grace— might end, it's the love she has for her husband Robert that will sustain.
Note the contrast between the attempt to measure her love with rational language—depth, breadth, height—and the use of the words Soul, Being and Grace, which imply something intangible and spiritual. Her love goes beyond natural life and man-made theology. These are weighty concepts—the reader is made aware that this is no ordinary love early on in the sonnet. The clause, lines 2—4, contains enjambment, a continuation of theme from one line to the next.
She then compares her like to the passionate intensity with which she once tried to beat her past pains also because of the way during which she believed in goodies as a toddler. Lastly, she compares her like to what she once felt for people she wont to revere but has somehow fallen out of her favor. The speaker concludes the sonnet by telling her husband that if God will allow her, she is going to love him even more after she is gone.
Her love is initially described as an otherworldly force that comes from deep within her soul. The speaker then contrasts this image with the outline of a calmer, more mundane love that sustains her on a day today.
Her love is then compared to the standard efforts of mankind in wishing to try to good for the planet without a requirement to be praised. Love then takes on a fanatical tone another time , because the speaker proceeds to match her feelings to the intensity that arises from spirituality and therefore the childlike innocence of believing in goodness.
The sonnet as an entire describes how the love the speaker feels for her husband consumes her body and soul, and it relays the hope that she will still love him even more once she is gone. Her love manifests itself physically, spiritually, and morally—essentially, in every aspect of her being. Her love appears to physically sustain her in life. I love thee with the breath,. 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 freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. 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.
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem. The Scandal of — An informative article about the marriage and scandalous elopement of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. If thou must love me, let it be for nought Sonnets from the Portuguese
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