* * *
Here's a sonnet by the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barret Browning, wife of poet Robert Browning. It is one of the best-loved love poems in the English language and is number 43 in her sonnet sequence of 44 sonnets titled 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' and written between 1845 and 1846.
The sonnets have nothing to do with Portugal or the Portuguese. Elizabeth thought the poems too personal and it was to protect her privacy that she used the name Portuguese. It was also the nickname that Robert Browning had affectionately given her.
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 an 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 Barret Browning
* * *
No Man Is An Island
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the
continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the
sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were :
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
- John Donne
Tailpiece.
Got up at 6, the chores and was ready by a half past 9. Suma, had requested for a day's off and it was Lekha's show all the way. The day, therefore, resembled a Sunday.
It was rain all the way.
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