How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways


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.

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning





..The Magnolia Tree Listen :

She lay her body back down in the grass, shaded by the coolness of the large, fragrant magnolia tree that towered overhead. When I die, may I be buried under a magnolia tree like this one. When I die, let someone discover my memory someday and love me like I love him.

Lucy laughed out loud at the thought of this. It was so ridiculously romantic, so absurdly surreal and so immersed in fantasy that she thought herself insane.

She carefully tore apart the petals of the large, white flower one by one and let them fall into her dark, chocolate colored hair.

.............. When Lucy was a little girl, she would imagine the magnolias to be tiny ethereal beings that looked over her when God was too busy with the rest of the world's problems.

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