Elizabeth Barrett Browning

   The study of poetry in high school was just part of the curriculum in English class. The girls thought it was so romantic while the boys laughed. No one paid too much attention to the lives of the authors. They remembered answers to test questions.

    I hear very little about old English prose or poetry. Wonder why that is? I suspect that if they studied these poets, these writers of prose they would have to discuss their faith or their lack of it. What made many of these authors what they were was their faith, their strong Christian faith. 

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the oldest of 12 children (born 1806, Durham England).  She was vehemently opposed to slavery although her father, an Englishman, owned slaves who worked his plantations in Jamaica.  

    She taught herself Hebrew so she could read the Old Testament.  She also spent much time in Greek study.  Her passion for her Christian faith apparently fueled both of these studies. 

    Elizabeth wrote her first poem by age 6 or 8 ("On the Cruelty of Forcement to Man."  On her 14th birthday her father underwrote the publishing of her first Homeric poem "The Battle of Marathon (1820)".

    Her life is very interesting and worth learning about.  Enjoy. 

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Barrett_Browning

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/152

Following are two of her poems.

Beloved, my Beloved... (Sonnet 20)

 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Beloved, my Beloved, when I think 
That thou wast in the world a year ago, 
What time I sate alone here in the snow 
And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink 
No moment at thy voice ... but, link by link, 
Went counting all my chains, as if that so 
They never could fall off at any blow 
Struck by thy possible hand ... why, thus I drink 
Of life's great cup of wonder! Wonderful, 
Never to feel thee thrill the day or night 
With personal act or speech,—nor ever cull 
Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white 
Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull, 
Who cannot guess God's presence out of sight.

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

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 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.