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]1 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]2 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.
Riders in Paradise
Cantata by Peter Tahourdin (1928 - 2009)
?. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways  [sung text not yet checked]
Text Authorship:
- by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861), no title, appears in Poems, in Sonnets from the Portuguese, no. 43, first published 1847-50
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CHI Chinese (中文) (M.W. Wang) , "我有多麽愛你?", copyright © 2008, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
See also Karl Shapiro's parody How do I love you?
1 Steele: "men"
2 Steele: "seem"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
?. My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!  [sung text not yet checked]
My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee to-night. This said, -- he wished to have me in his sight Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing, Yet I wept for it! -- this, . . . the paper's light . . . Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed As if God's future thundered on my past. This said, I am thine -- and so its ink has paled With lying at my heart that beat too fast. And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
Text Authorship:
- by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861), no title, appears in Poems, in Sonnets from the Portuguese, no. 28, first published 1847
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]?. Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers  [sung text not yet checked]
Belovèd, thou [hast brought]1 me many flowers Plucked in [the]2 garden, all the summer through And winter, and it seemed as if they grew In [this]3 close room, nor missed the sun and showers. So, in the like name of that love of ours, Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too, And which on warm and cold days I withdrew From my heart's ground. Indeed, [those]4 beds and bowers Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue, And wait thy weeding; yet here's eglantine, Here's ivy! -- take them, as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine. Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true, And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.
Text Authorship:
- by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861), no title, appears in Poems, in Sonnets from the Portuguese, no. 44, first published 1850
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View original text (without footnotes)1 Carpenter: "did'st bring"
2 Carpenter: "this"
3 Carpenter: "my"
4 Carpenter: "these"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
?. Thou comest! all is said without a word  [sung text not yet checked]
Thou comest! all is said without a word. I sit beneath thy looks, as children do In the noon-sun, with souls that tremble through Their happy eyelids from an unaverred Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, I erred In that last doubt! and yet I cannot rue The sin most, but the occasion -- that we two Should for a moment stand unministered By a mutual presence. Ah, keep near and close, Thou dove-like help! and when my fears would rise, With thy broad heart serenely interpose: Brood down with thy divine sufficiencies These thoughts which tremble when bereft of those, Like callow birds left desert to the skies.
Text Authorship:
- by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861), no title, appears in Poems, in Sonnets from the Portuguese, no. 31, first published 1847
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) (Rainer Maria Rilke) , no title, appears in Sonette aus dem Portugiesischen, no. 31, first published 1908
?. Say over again, and yet once over again  [sung text not yet checked]
Say over again, and yet once over again, That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated Should seem “a cuckoo-song,” as thou dost treat it, Remember, never to the hill or plain, Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed. Belovèd, I, amid the darkness greeted By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain Cry, “Speak once more—thou lovest!” Who can fear Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll, Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year? Say thou [dost]1 love me, love me, love me — toll The silver iterance! — only minding, Dear, To love me also in silence with thy soul.
Text Authorship:
- by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861), no title, appears in Poems, in Sonnets from the Portuguese, no. 21, first published 1847
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Christian Hawkey) , no title, written 2012, appears in Sonne from ort, no. 21
Confirmed with English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald, Vol. XLI. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001. www.bartleby.com/41/598.htm
1 Steele: "does" (typo?)Researcher for this page: Lynn Steele
?. I see thine image through my tears to‑night  [sung text not yet checked]
I see thine image through my tears to-night, And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How Refer the cause?--Beloved, is it thou Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow, On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow, Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight, As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's amen. Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when Too vehement light dilated my ideal, For my soul's eyes? Will that light come again, As now these tears come--falling hot and real?
Text Authorship:
- by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 - 1861), no title, appears in Poems, in Sonnets from the Portuguese, no. 30, first published 1850
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) (Rainer Maria Rilke) , no title, appears in Sonette aus dem Portugiesischen, no. 30, first published 1908