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 Me Without Conditions

Love me like Elizabeth said she loved, and the earth will be yours even if I am not God to give you all that, but I will give you a warm home in my heart if you just love me with all the passion and intensity of a love like the one in this poem. Love me with a need for me as the need of every day and even when you are on the move to whatever comes next, you remember me and want to share even that undiscovered world with me. Love me with every smile and cry, and the river of tears you shed brings me closer for I am the only companion for all your joy and misery, which is found no more for I am here right inside your heart feeling home after the long journey astray without a place to live. You give this heart of gold and this eternal love, and I will love you forever.

Yet when you choose to love me, love me not because I do what you asked me to do, not because you feel I am the embodiment of your dream, not because I adhere to your future plans, not because I understand what you want and quickly respond to all your requests and demands, and not because I am the one for I am not except for what I have become and will ever be during the journey of loving you.

Love me because you want to love and go on and never look back and never look ahead farther than the eyes can show and the fragile legs we humans have can take. Then on the way you have found me, a person just like you who loves you more than he loves himself and one that has no expectations at all; one who just wants to enjoy walking along with you on the route of a romantic love that has long been gone and seems we are the ones to tread back on it and our feet will rake the leaves away and show the path again as we go. Love me not because you need me, but love me enough until your need you feel because you love. Love me not because I am the picture that fits into the boundaries of your frames, love me because I am the picture you are ready to make custom-made frames for. Love me without conditions as Elizabeth Browning loves in her poem and I assure you that I will breathe your love, I will eat and drink your love, and I will live your love forever.