HOW DO I LOVE THEE?
From Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. This probably her most famous poem.
- 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 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.
THE END
=================================================
Elizabeth alone in Victoriana
Elizabeth Moulton-Barrett was born on Thursday, March 6, 1806, the eldest child of Edward Moulton-Barrett (1785–1857) and Mary Graham-Clarke (1781–1828), at Coxhoe Hall, County Durham, England. Both come from families with extensive plantations in Jamaica, where her father Edward was born and lived until the age of seven.
The Barretts left Coxhoe in the Autumn of 1808 and, after a period spent mainly in London and at Mickleham in Surrey, and moved at the end of 1809 to Hope End, near Ledbury, Herefordshire (purchased for £24 000). This would be their home until August 1832. The original house was converted into stables and a new mansion in an exotic Turkish style was constructed.
EBB’s beloved brother Edward Moulton-Barrett (‘Bro’, 1807–40) was born 26 June 1807 and four other siblings helped her in confinement. While there were twelve children altogether, eleven of whom survived infancy), she particularly close to Henrietta (1809–60), born March 1809, Arabella (Arabel, born 4 July 1813 died 1868) , and George born 15 July 1816 died in 1895. Elizabeth herself died in 1862 in Florence,Italy. Her beloved Robert never remarried.
The Neptunian Sprite
Her mother died from rheumatoid arthritis on July 7th, there has been a lot of conjecture that is what EBB had as it is a hereditary disease. On this site are few ideas listed. Medical researcher Ann Buchanan research associate in anthropology, reports in the current issue of Perspectives in Biology and Medicine:
“Conjectures by modern biographers about Barrett Browning’s condition include anorexia nervosa, neurasthenia; tuberculosis; pertussis, an encephalomyelitis; non-paralytic poliomyelitis; paralytic scoliosis, or the lifetime effects of injuries to her spine from falling from her horse in early adolescence; opium addiction; and mental illness, including anxiety and agoraphobia,”
Mrs. Browning is not esteemed in literary circles as great poet, and she had no notable poetyexcept for Sonnets from the Portuguese which thankfully her husband Robert Browning encouraged to her publish. Prior to that most of her poems were sweet but lacked depth. but her chart tells us that Neptune’s discovery during her lifetime and her marriage four years later, had a monumental effect on this lovely lady and its conjunction in her chart exactly to the then Galactic Center (24.14 in Sagittarius) fell in her Third House of short communications (unlike her husband she wrote no long poems) would change everything.
So, if anyone epitomizes Neptune in the Arts and the Spirit of this planet, this delicate lady, and the American Louisa May Alcott were two notable examples. Both wrote extremely popular, well-paid and well-loved verse all from the confines of their homes.
As Neptune is almost completely centered in the segment of her bowl emphasizing Personal Expression and as it is square her sixth house, of small animals and ill health, definitely was the dynamic urge to propel her to express herself in very romantic and sentimental ways.
Elizabeth and Emily
Often it is said that Emily Bronte, who shares much in common with Mrs. Browning is the Neptunian Definition, but the problem is this is more because of movie on Wuthering Heights with Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier and not on its own merits. 1 It is true that Emily she died when Neptune was discovered, but it is conjunct her Uranus in of all signs that of the archer, but all this makes her more of a rebel with a cause than a starry eyed poet. Mrs. Browning, on the other hand, needs no movie, no Hollywood send-up, her Sonnets are one of the most well-loved, highly regarded and memorized set of poems in modern times.
An invalid, Saturn in the Second House, may have had HPKK but it also resembles what was called then “neurasthenia” or what is now referred to a fibromyalgia — sensitive neural pathways that overreact to stress, exercise, and fatigue. As the disease typically overwhelms the victims, it is hard for them to manage daily existence and as stress is a strong contributor, and her father’s overbearing manner (Saturn in the Second sextile the North Node exact to Jupiter in the Fourth House of the Home and father) did not help there.
As Poet
She found great comfort (Jupiter in the Fourth House sextile the stellium in the Sixth) in her work. Mercury and Mars show her vigour for writing and self-expression. Pluto separates that pair — and was yet to be discovered for another 70 years — from the Sun conjunct Venus just sitting proud and regal on the Seventh House of Relationships cusp — they met through her work.
It was the relationship that fueled gossip rags, angered people and gave hope to the love lorn: infirm and quite wealthy Elizabeth left all to be with her great love, the nascent poet Robert Browning, in Italy. They hoped that the warm of the Mediterranean rays would help her health. She lived another fifteen years, so who knows if it did, but it was Browning that disciplined her mind, broke her from her father and made her create great passionate verse that made Shakespeare’s sonnets look pale in comparison.
Her ascendant at 30 Virgo, Dr. Henry J. Gordon (he was a medical doctor who took up astrology after World War I) writes that this degree gives one an “eccentric nature” that is in tune with mysticism, and will tend towards mental work. He cites that this is a tragic degree because they are too attuned to their own body.
For Mrs. Barrett, the Mercury trine to Saturn conjunct Uranus (the individual breaks out from structure and demands through sorrow) semi-sextile Neptune/the Galactic Center (extreme sensitivity to a new mode of expression) was just that extra push that she needed. But let us not think that her father was her only impression; her mother’s death (Saturn inconjunct Venus and just missing a conjunction to the Moon) started her poetic career with Aurora Leigh, telling us how sorrow, love, and partings were all melded into one beautiful whole in her writings.
Her part of Fortune is at 25 Aries in the Seventh, suggesting that Marriage would allow the potential within to be unlocked….and we most definitely agree. Go to Gutenberg.org and download the Sonnets, or go to Poemhunter read them. Either way, you will not be denied.
You can read a little more about her from this essay here.
“First time he kissed me he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write,
And ever since, it grew more clean and white,
Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’
When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst
I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,
Than that first kiss. The second passed in height
The first, and sought the forehead, and half-missed
Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!
That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.
The third upon my lips was folded down
In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,
I have been proud and said, ‘My love, my own!’
Download the chart for Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- In many ways the new Wuthering Heights directed and produced by Emerald Fennell and staring Margot Robbie and Elordi is truer to the book than the 1939 classic particularly as it was shot on location on the Yorkshire moors giving it that etheral feeling, In many ways the new Wuthering Heights directed and produced by Emerald Fennell and staring Margot Robbie and Elordi is truer to the book than the 1939 classic particularly as it was shot on location on the Yorkshire moors giving it that etheral feeling, but the tone of the book, it horribly a story of class jealousy, envy and unwholesome revenge. That plays into Bronte’s Saturn in Pisces opposite Venus in Virgo partile Mars and not anything Neptunian.
↩︎
Discover more from Sabian Earth
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.