Thee = the poet’s husband-to-be, Robert Browning. The question is simply phrased and she will prove her love for him in the next thirteen lines

The exclamation makes the tone really enthusiastic and passionate, as if she’s going to enjoy showing him the ways she loves him; it seems she’s ready to burst with emotion and feelings.

Love is very difficult to define and Brown-ing is trying to answer a perplexing ques-tion here. Her love is for a man her fa-ther forbade her from marrying and she had to hide her writing, saying it was a translation from Portugese. Her love is therefore of a woman fighting the odds.

I love thee is re-peated eight times in the poem; it is a confirmation of her feelings towards him. Repetition like this in poetry is called ‘anaphora’.

The word ‘soul’ brings a spiritual element into the poem– this is going to be a spiritual love, eternal. The use of the word ‘soul’ means that her body and her spirit love him, that her love is pure and not just ‘physical’.

She begins in a calm manner and the lines flow easily, with little pause, talk-ing in the ab-stract. The usual ‘domestic’ love is written in iam-bic pentameter.

There’s an empha-sis on this triplet here. Not only is there an internal rhyme of depth/breadth but this tri-ple syndetic listing cannot be any deeper, higher or wider. Her love is three-dimensional and goes further in all directions than she can possible even know. The diction here is slightly religious in tone. These are not tangible bounda-ries, they can’t be touched or seen.

Grace and Being are capitalized. Why? She seems to be referring to God and to have his gift of ‘grace’, salvation. To be loved by a perfect God for all eternity. Her soul, being and grace, now make this a metaphysical poem about eter-nal love. ‘Out of sight’ shows that even she can-not plumb the depths of her love— it is unfathom-able how much she loves him.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways! - I love thee to the depth and breadth & height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace.

It is in iambic pentameter, a very strict form of writing. Browning changes the form to suit her though; HOW do I LOVE thee? Then the rhythm slips back into normal iambic pentameter as she calmly gives her reasons.

How beautiful an image is that? It could be interpreted two ways. First, it means that she needs him just as much as air, food, warmth, kinship, shel-ter—things that she must have. She cannot survive without him, cannot live or function. Or does it mean more? Does it mean that she will provide everything that he could possibly want, she will meet all of his simple needs all the time? There is something very pure about this simple domes-tic image.

Emphasising that whatever time of day it is, she will be there. I wonder how many people in love can be with each other 24/7 and not tire of each other?

‘Freely’—she is not looking for anything in return, there are no restrictions on her love. This love is given out of her own free will and not of coercion

‘Purely’ - the se-cond adverb in as many lines. This is love in moral terms; there is no hidden agenda, no other cause. Her love is genuine, she doesn’t desire any praise for it, it is love for love’s sake only.

Right is capital-ized—why? Be-cause she loves him just as much as men who strive for freedom. This would have been a very important is-sue at the time. If men strive for ‘Right’ they will be happy and we all want to be happy.

3 times ‘I love thee’ in these 4 lines. ‘I love thee’ ALWAYS has punctuation be-fore it, whether cae-suras or end-stops; they are to empha-sise the words when we read them.

Interesting thought that men ‘turn from praise’. I always thought people liked being praised, being told they were good at some-thing. This is an emotionally powerful phrase pertaining to certain religious beliefs and would have been more powerful then than now. They reflect her strong religious upbringing.

I love thee to the level of everyday'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;

She loves him with an intensity equal to that experienced during her times of suffering. There is a strong religious element here again— it reminds one that through pain she is still alive.

Faith in childhood—there is an expression of innocence here, of believing in purity, that everything can be per-fect, there is no room for any doubts that we feel as we grow older and question.

Interesting line. She loves him with the inten-sity one feels during their innocence of youth, which she lost, but she feels it again for him. The poem is getting more passionate and the rhythm is changing to match this. Instead of iambic pentameter (one unstressed, one stressed syllable) we now read: ‘WITH my LOST SAINTS—I LOVE THEE with the BREATH/ SMILES, TEARS of ALL my LIFE!’ She is becom-ing more intense in her declaration of love. Is it too sentimental?

‘breath...life!’ - the breath shows that she needs him as much as air; smiles shows that she knows there will be good times, tears show the opposite; then there is all my life—he means eve-ry emotion she has ever had, every-thing is wrapped up in him. The calm approach she had at the beginning is now becoming more emotional. She is promising him ALL of her life, to love him to the point where she dies where even then it won’t stop.

If God choose—so not only will she love him in perfect way in this life, but will love him in a more pure way for all eternity. The problems of everyday living would not be there in ‘Heaven’ - the love that would en-dure throughout eternity would be a pure one, one which only required them knowing ‘love’ and each other in ways they cannot on earth. This love is eternal, it will never end. The purity of their love is witnessed by God—and if he chooses it to continue then it will last forever. Not one way of her loving him can be felt or touched in this poem. They are all abstractions, some metaphysical, ways in which love cannot be shown to be real but are felt.

I love thee with a 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.

Despite the word ‘faith’ not rhyming with breath or death (but being connected thematically) the poem loses very little of its impact; it doesn’t jar on the reader, does it?

What do you feel as a reader when you’ve finished this poem? Do you go ‘Awwwwww…?’