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 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 breadth,
Smiles, tears of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
-ebb
All my life I've dreamed of
Someone
Who would love me and who would
Always be there
Whenever I needed him;
A gentle smile, a praising eye, and a warm shoulder on which to cry.
Someone
Who would love me for who I am,
Who loves my faults almost more than my perfections.
I've been so blessed to find you -
Although I thought we were lost,
Love has grown anew;
You are my shelter in storm,
my comfort in grief,
All of my joy in happiness,
my pride in each passing day -
YOU are my dream come true.
I wish I could remember that first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me,
If bright or dim the season, it might be
Summer or winter for aught I can say;
So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to foresee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom yet for many a May.
If only I could recollect it, such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand - Did one but know!
-cr
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so perservere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
-ab
I'm "wife" - I've finished that -
That other state -
I'm Czar - I'm "Woman" now -
It's safer so -
How odd the Girl's life looks
Behind this soft Eclipse -
I think that Earth feels so
To folks in Heaven - now -
This being comfort - then
That other kind - was pain -
But why compare?
I'm "Wife"! Stop there!
-ed
If you were coming in the Fall,
I'd brush the Summer by
With half a smile, and half a spurn,
As Housewives do, a Fly.
If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls -
And put them each in separate Drawers,
For fear the numbers fuse -
If only Centuries, delayed,
I'd count them on my Hand,
Subtracting, till my fingers dropped
Into Van Dieman's Land.
If certain, when this life was out -
That yours and mine, should be
I'd toss it yonder, like a Rind,
And take Eternity -
-ed
