Tag: Sonnet

Friday Poetry: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Happy Friday!

My chosen poem this week is by the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861). I thought this poem was a good choice for Valentine’s Day.

This sonnet is from Browning’s collection Sonnets from the Portuguese. 

How Do I Love Thee?

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. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Happy Birthday

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Friday Poetry: William Shakespeare

Happy Friday!

I have gone for another Shakespeare Sonnet and this one I think is perfect for Autumn.

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
William Shakespeare
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