No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Context: 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 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 breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
“That I shall love always,
I argue thee
that love is life,
and life hath immortality”
"Bedouin Song" (1853), in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 69.
Source: The Poems of Bayard Taylor
Context: I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!
Context: From the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 206.
On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake. Compare: "She was good as she was fair, None—none on earth above her! As pure in thought as angels are: To know her was to love her, Samuel Rogers, Jacqueline, Stanza 1.
“If I should meet thee
After long years
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.”
“I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while my days go on”
St. 23 -24.
De Profundis (1862)
Context: p>I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while my days go on:
Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost,
With emptied arms and treasure lost,
I thank Thee while my days go on.And having in thy life-depth thrown
Being and suffering (which are one),
As a child drops his pebble small
Down some deep well, and hears it fall
Smiling — so I. THY DAYS GO ON.</p
