I dedicate this poem to everyone. Everyone of us who has experienced love. I send hugs to all who have loved and then lost that love. This year, my husband will have been gone twenty years. Hearts to all.

HOW DO I LOVE THEE? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS

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  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.

 

 

 

Love is the sweetest and most painful of emotions. Some say that love is a state of mind. I like what Gibran has to say about love. We experience love every day from somewhere, but let it not bound you and let your being be whole within the love.

 

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

From The Prophet

Khalil Gibran

Love one another, but make not a bond of love.

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give you hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.

For only the land of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

 

Thank you for being part of my WordPress family. I love you all. Hearts, Barbara