Her poem starts in a very scientific way but looses its touch and continues to bring out more inner emotions experienced in love. Through her inspiring words she brings out the passion and intensity experienced in love. She indirectly brings out her extraordinary love for her husband. She reveals the uncountable ways in which she loves her husband deeply. She describes her love as a necessary need and proclaims to continue to love till the end of life and if possible even after death. In the title itself she brings out her love for her husband for which she has no words to express. “How do I love thee?” she expresses her innermost feeling for her love through this poem. This poem includes a beautifully embedded internal rhyme scheme, where she repeats I love thee, I love thee. This poem is similar to that of Christina Rossetti, A Birthday. This also starts on a happy note and continues revealing the beautiful sights and sounds of love. This poem provides a great contrast to that of Christina Rossetti (Remember), John Clare (First Love), Lord Byron (When we two parted).These poems talk about parting and departing after experiencing love for the first time and death.
A Birthday, by Christina Rossetti is similar to that of Browning’s poem. Cristina Rossetti (1830-1896) was a Victorian poet whose poems mainly spoke about grief and loss and revolved upon the dark side of life. Her poem, a birthday speaks of the happy side of love. She highlights the satisfaction of pure love.
In this poem nature is in its productivity through words like birds, peacocks, doves etc. which describes the richness and intensity of her love where she has used words like, gold, silver, fruit, rainbow, silk, etc. This poem talks about the return of lost love and the satisfaction achieved from it. She brings out the happiness through the most beautiful sites in the world. She has used pathetic fallacy as she tries to reflect her own mood through the poem. The repetition of the words “my heart” brings out the happiness she experiences from within. The title “A Birthday” does not match the intensity of the poem, but it still makes people feel special on a content day like a birthday. There are two paragraphs in this sonnet and both of them end with” my love is come to me.” This shows her contentment and happiness because of the returned love. It brings out the intensity that she owes to her lover.
In contrast to “A Birthday,” Christina Rossetti has written another poem called” remember”. This poem is completely opposite as it speaks on lost love. She talks about death through out this poem and fears of losing her lover. The words “remember” echoes through out the poem as Rossetti wants to be remembered even after death. She demands importance to be given to her. The death wish is echoed through out the poem. Here she shows the physical barriers stopping her from coming in union with her lover. The poem starts with the word “remember” and ends with the words sad which are linked directly to death and sadness. She speaks about the destroyed plans of her future. She talks about departing into a silent land far away from her lover. She says not to be sad by remembering her but yet talks about her importance thought the first paragraph. She talks about the darkness that the broken relationship may add to his life but yet she tells him to carry on.
Another poem that talks about departed love is that of john Clare, first love. John Clare was an English poet who lived in northamshire from 1793-1864. He was regarded as the most important English poet of the natural world. The title itself suggests that the poet has fallen in love for the first time and feels the experience like he has never felt before. He is struck by her beauty and cannot forget her what-so-ever. He falls in love with her at once, love at first sight. In the second paragraph, he describes the symptoms of love as if it were an illness, as his blood rushed to his face. His world seems to have turned upside down as he is filled with passion and confusion of his newly found love. He describes himself as the flower and his lover as the winter as his analyses weather she is the right choice for him. He claims to never fall in love again as it causes great pain and so he parts from his natural desire to meet his lover.
In all these love poems we see various writers trying to express their love trough different ways. Sometimes love is happy and sometimes love brings sadness.
