How Do I Love Thee by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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 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.
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.

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Wild Nights

    Wild nights! Wild nights!
    Were I with thee,
    Wild nights should be
    Our luxury!

    Futile the winds
    To a heart in port,
    Done with the compass,
    Done with the chart.

    Rowing in Eden!
    Ah! the sea!
    Might I but moor
    To-night in thee!

by Emily Dickinson

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The Dead Woman

If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you are not living,
I shall go on living.

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.

I shall go on living.

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Million Man March Poem

The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.

Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach,
I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach.
Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound,
You couldn't even call out my name.
You were helpless and so was I,
But unfortunately throughout history
You've worn a badge of shame.

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Many a phrase has the English language

Many a phrase has the English language --
I have heard but one --
Low as the laughter of the Cricket,
Loud, as the Thunder's Tongue --

Murmuring, like old Caspian Choirs,
When the Tide's a' lull --
Saying itself in new inflection --
Like a Whippoorwill --

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To a Dead Man

Over the dead line we have called to you

To come across with a word to us,

Some beaten whisper of what happens

Where you are over the dead line

Deaf to our calls and voiceless.



The flickering shadows have not answered

Nor your lips sent a signal

Whether love talks and roses grow

And the sun breaks at morning

Splattering the sea with crimson.

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Barren Woman

Empty, I echo to the least footfall,
Museum without statues, grand with pillars,
porticoes, rotundas.
In my courtyard a fountain leaps and sinks
back into itself,
Nun-hearted and blind to the world. Marble lilies
Exhale their pallor like scent.

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