A Love Story for the Ages: Poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning

by Sarah Raplee

In 1844, multi-published English poet Elizabeth Barrett praised the work of a new poet, Robert Browning, in a poem in her collection, titled simply Poems. The two had never met. 

After reading Poems, Robert wrote Elizabeth Barrett a letter. They continued to write each other every day and met the next year. Their romance faced a mountain of seemingly-insurmountable obstacles. Elizabeth was thirty-eight when they began to correspond; Robert was six years younger. Elizabeth belonged to the upper class, while Robert’s father was a bank clerk. 

Elizabeth had a spinal injury from childhood, as well as a lung disease. Her father never wanted her to marry. He forbade the romance. She was close to being a prisoner in her father’s house.Robert Browning’s poem that follows  gives you a sense of what their courtship was like.

Meeting at Night

The gray sea and the long black land; 

And the yellow half-moon large and low: 

And the startled little waves that leap 

In fiery ringlets from their sleep, 

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand. 

 

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; 

Three fields to cross till a farm appears; 

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch 

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, through joys and fears, 

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Elizabeth secretly wrote Sonnets from the Portuguese for Robert while living in her father’s house. Most people consider the Sonnets to be Elizabeth’s best work. They are one of the most widely-read collections of love poems in the English language.

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

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.

The two enamored poets managed to elope and run away to Italy. Elizabeth’s father never spoke to her again. In Florence, the bride’s health improved. Three years later she gave birth to a healthy son whom they nicknamed Pen.

Widely considered to be Robert’s best poems, a collection titled Men and Women was dedicated to Elizabeth. Robert insisted his wife was his inspiration.

Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived a True Love Story for the ages.I hope their romance inspires you as much as it does me.
~Sarah Raplee