“Death’s black extinguisher must soon put out thy candle. Oh! how sweet to have sunlight when the candle is gone! The dark flood must soon roll between thee and all thou hast; then wed thine heart to him who will never leave thee; trust thyself with him who will go with thee through the black and surging current of death’s stream, and who will land thee safely on the celestial shore, and make thee sit with him in heavenly places for ever.” Charles Spurgeon, Morning And Evening, May 11th Morning Reading.
If you don’t have Morning And Evening, get it, read it, and love it.
that they can give you the true meaning of love, he or she would be lying, busaece all they can give you is their relative experience of love, and it therefore becomes an opinion. We find different ways of expressing our love, through songs, others though short stories or big novels. Poets like Elizabeth Barrett-Browning choose to pen a poem, to express their feelings. Her ability to write that many exceptional poems full of love should really show the extent of her love to her husband. The poem is written from the viewpoint of a deeply devoted wife, full of affection for her significant other. She is also very religious, as the poem contains many references to her religion of Christianity and god.Lines 1-12 are about love, and then it shifts to a more serious tone, where the poet speaks about love. In the lines 2-3, 5-6, 9-14, the poet uses enjambment, which helps the poem run on’, so you flow into the next line and continue momentum instead of the usual rhythm a poem would have. The first line “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”, makes the readers think that it is a rhetorical question, but in fact, the whole poem is the answer to this question. As the reader reads on, he or she realizes that the poem actually gives the ways in which she loves her partner in life. The next line she says and explains that her love was “to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach” which shows that her love has no boundaries, and is only limited by how much she can achieve, or the extent of her reach.In the next line, she says that “she loves thee purely”, which explains that she only loves her husband, not anyone else. Also, she explains that she loves him as he “as they turn from praise” which means that her love is lasting, unlike the temporary good feeling achieved from someone praising you. In the next line, she says that “I love thee with a love I seemed to lose, With my lost saints”, suggesting that she has transformed the love she used to have for someone she admired, but was let down, and has since channeled it towards her new lover with the same intensity. She next writes that she “shall but love thee better after death”, which suggests that her love for her husband extends to after both of them have passed away. Her love then might be even stronger, busaece in the life we are living now, we are constantly bombarded by huge amounts of stress, worrying about things, making tough decisions and many other factors. With these annoyances, it is hard to find time or even space to have a love life. In the afterlife, we need not face the problems we encounter in our everyday lives, allowing us to be able to love someone with no limits, even ‘better after death”, focusing all your time and love to your soul mate.The poet’s choice of words is rather formal, yet passionate, and definitely romantic. At the start of the poem, she asks “how do I love thee”, which provides the feeling of a rhetorical question, when in fact, it is not, as the whole poem itself gives answers to the question. Also, in the poem she hyperbolizes when she explains her extent of her love to her lover. A good example would be when she writes, in line 2 and 3 that she “loves thee to the depth and breadth and height, my soul can reach”. She contrasts the two nouns, sun and candle-light in line 6, which are two different types of light sources which people use; one natural and used in the day, and one artificial and used at night. She could also have meant that it was a replacement for night and day, stating the fact that without light there is no life, and without life, there would not be love. Also, you would need light to see, to guide you through life, to find your lover. Thus, without light, you will never find the person you love, your one true love. She “loves thee purely, as men strive for Right”, which shows that her love’s will is as strong as the will of the people who are willing to stand up against for the better good, to fight for the what is right. Throughout the poem, she uses allusions to allows readers to interpret on their own the meaning of a sentence or phrase, such as her “old griefs”. That could allude to her sad childhood, or the hatred that she once had for someone, which was turned to love for her husband. In lines 2, 5, 7-9 and 11, she employs the use anaphora beginning and ending with the phrase, “l love thee”. The effect of parallel structure shows that the poem is more of a list of the how she feels towards her lover, rather than a telling a story of what their love is.Through the use of spatial metaphors, such as “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach”, the three dimensional space is conveyed, showing the extent of her reach, or the extent of her love. The effect achieved is that we understand the vastness of the love, but we cannot get a picture in his/her mind of exactly how much that is due to its limitlessness. She also uses symbolism; represents her love through different words, such as saying that her love is like her every “breath, smiles, tears”. This suggest that she loves him with every smile that crosses her face, which shows that her happiness is always an expression of loving him, and also the sad times, thus the “tears” and even unemotional moments of merely breathing in and out. The effect created by this is that these bodily reactions can be compared to her soul as she transforms the bodily realm to be with god, “if he chooses”. Also, we can understand that her love can range from the smiles of happiness to something like breathing, which we do every second of our lives. The repetition of the ‘th’ sounds can also suggest breathing. However, the lines 5-6 are the only lines which use concrete imagery – ‘sun’ and ‘light’ however it is still very much abstract, as is the whole poem. The effect achieved by this is that it would make the reader think about the poem, and then deducing what is meant by what she says.One of the most intriguing aspects of the poem is that the poet does not specify his or her gender, keeping in line with the vagueness of the rest of the poem. Because of the lack of gender markers, readers would have to interpret themselves who the poem is for, thus making the poem popular, as readers would find it easy to associate with their lives, and also busaece the rest of the poem is equally ambiguous, allowing readers to interpret the poem to fit their own lives, and thus associate with it. If she had used more specific terms, like changing the word “thee” to her husband’s name of Robert, readers might not have the same amount of interest, as their names would not be Robert; save for a few who actually are though. This is likewise for the gender of the author. If she had given any form of clue that allowed readers to determine her gender, then the male readers would not have the same amount of interest in the poem, as they would not be able to relate to it. In this way the poem is all-inclusive.The poem “How do I love thee” has a rhyme scheme of an Italian sonnet busaece of its rhyme scheme of ABBA, AABB, ACAC, DCD. It has an iambic pentameter rhythm with 10 syllables per line with five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables. She also uses internal rhyming, seen in “depth and breadth and height”. She also uses anaphora, using of “I love thee” eight times and another “I shall but love thee” in the last line”. Also the word “love” is repeated nine times, building up rhythm while emphasizing again that she really has deep feelings for her beloved. She also uses alliteration, examples would be ‘soul’ and sight on line 3, ‘love’ and ‘level’ in line 3 and ‘pure’ and ‘praise’ in line 8. The effect of the alliteration is that it makes the poem aids in memory busaece it is catchy, and makes the poem sound better, and helps emphasize about her deep emotions for her husband. It can also help aid readers to remember the poem better, for example, you would more likely remember a poem with the title “the menace of money” than “money is bad” .After reading the poem, I feel that the very mysteriousness of this poem and abstractness allows readers to interpret the poem differently, which could also mean that love itself is up to anyone individual to interpret, as love would be different to everyone, depending on their character and who they love. Unlike other poems, the poet does not directly talk about how she loves her husband, rather she uses vague terms like “most quiet need” which could have a few meanings, like for example the everyday necessities like water we need to survive. Finally, this poem is enjoyable to readers busaece its open-endedness allows for different readers to interpret the poem differently, to suit their own life, whether male or female.