Elizabeth Barrett Browning-- How do I love thee?

[Swarna Rangarajan]

Dear All,
Complex emotions like love are best articulated when the
language employed has a stark simplicity about it.
Sending across one of the most famous love poems in literature by
Elizabeth Browning, wife of the acclaimed Robert Browning.
Best,
----------------------------------
XLIII. "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

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 a 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.



On 10/26/12, Swarna Rangarajan <swarn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Students,
> The presentation today inspired me to post this classic love story
> by O Henry. It is a great read for those of you who have not yet
> stumbled on this piece.
> Best
>
>
> THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
>
> by O. Henry
>
> One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it
> was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the
> grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned
> with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing
> implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven
> cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
> There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little
> couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection
> that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles
> predominating.
>
> While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first
> stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8
> per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had
> that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.
>
> In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go,
> and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring.
> Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James
> Dillingham Young."
>
> The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period
> of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now,
> when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking
> seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever
> Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was
> called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young,
> already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.
>
> Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag.
> She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a
> gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and
> she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been
> saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty
> dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had
> calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her
> Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for
> him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit
> near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
>
> There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you
> have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile
> person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of
> longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks.
> Della, being slender, had mastered the art.
>
> Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her
> eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within
> twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to
> its full length.
>
> Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in
> which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had
> been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair.
> Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della
> would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to
> depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the
> janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would
> have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck
> at his beard from envy.
>
> So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like
> a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself
> almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and
> quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear
> or two splashed on the worn red carpet.
>
> On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl
> of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she
> fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.
>
> Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All
> Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting.
> Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."
>
> "Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.
>
> "I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at
> the looks of it."
>
> Down rippled the brown cascade.
>
> "Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
>
> "Give it to me quick," said Della.
>
> Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed
> metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.
>
> She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else.
> There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned
> all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste
> in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not
> by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was
> even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must
> be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description
> applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she
> hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might
> be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch
> was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old
> leather strap that he used in place of a chain.
>
> When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence
> and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went
> to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which
> is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.
>
> Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls
> that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at
> her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
>
> "If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a
> second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl.
> But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-
> seven cents?"
>
> At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of
> the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.
>
> Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on
> the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she
> heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she
> turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little
> silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she
> whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."
>
> The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and
> very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened
> with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
>
> Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of
> quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in
> them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger,
> nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments
> that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with
> that peculiar expression on his face.
>
> Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
>
> "Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair
> cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas
> without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind,
> will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry
> Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what
> a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."
>
> "You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not
> arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
>
> "Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well,
> anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"
>
> Jim looked about the room curiously.
>
> "You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
>
> "You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold
> and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for
> you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with
> sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for
> you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"
>
> Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della.
> For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some
> inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or
> a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit
> would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but
> that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later
> on.
>
> Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
>
> "Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think
> there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that
> could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package
> you may see why you had me going a while at first."
>
> White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an
> ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to
> hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of
> all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
>
> For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della
> had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure
> tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the
> beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her
> heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope
> of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should
> have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
>
> But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look
> up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
>
> And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
>
> Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him
> eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash
> with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
>
> "Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have
> to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I
> want to see how it looks on it."
>
> Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands
> under the back of his head and smiled.
>
> "Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a
> while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to
> get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops
> on."
>
> The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who
> brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of
> giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise
> ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of
> duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful
> chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely
> sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But
> in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all
> who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive
> gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are
> the magi.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 1:36 PM, Vamshi <surabhiv...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> Mam, I've a class from 2 to 4:30 (R/T Slot). The 2'o clock slot is not
>> free
>> for 4th year CS students. So, all of us (CS students) can't attend
>> today's
>> class. Sorry mam, I would've mentioned this at the end of last class but
>> I
>> had to leave in a hurry as there was a quiz.
>>
>>
>> Thank you mam,
>> Vamshi.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 5:25 PM, Swarna Rangarajan <swarn...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear students,
>>> If you liked that symborska poem in the course work, you would
>>> surely like this too.
>>> Best, swarna
>>>
>>>
>>> NO TITLE REQUIRED BY WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA
>>>
>>> It has come to this: I'm sitting under a tree
>>> beside a river
>>> on a sunny morning.
>>> It's an insignificant event
>>> and won't go down in history.
>>> It's not battles and pacts,
>>> where motives are scrutinized,
>>> or noteworthy tyrannicides.
>>> And yet I'm sitting by this river, that's a fact.
>>> And since I'm here
>>> I must have come from somewhere,
>>> and before that
>>> I must have turned up in many other places,
>>> exactly like the conquerors of nations
>>> before setting sail.
>>> Even a passing moment has its fertile past,
>>> its Friday before Saturday,
>>> its May before June.
>>> Its horizons are no less real
>>> than those that a marshal's field glasses might scan.
>>> This tree is a poplar that's been rooted here for years.
>>> The river is the Raba; it didn't spring up yesterday.
>>> The path leading through the bushes
>>> wasn't beaten last week.
>>> The wind had to blow the clouds here
>>> before it could blow them away.
>>> And though nothing much is going on nearby,
>>> the world is no poorer in details for that.
>>> It's just as grounded, just as definite
>>> as when migrating races held it captive.
>>> Conspiracies aren't the only things shrouded in silence.
>>> Retinues of reasons don't trail coronations alone.
>>> Anniversaries of revolutions may roll around,
>>> but so do oval pebbles encircling the bay.
>>> The tapestry of circumstance is intricate and dense.
>>> Ants stitching in the grass.
>>> The grass sewn into the ground.
>>> The pattern of a wave being needled by a twig.
>>> So it happens that I am and look.
>>> Above me a white butterfly is fluttering through the air
>>> on wings that are its alone,
>>> and a shadow skims through my hands
>>> that is none other than itself, no one else's but its own.
>>> When I see such things, I'm no longer sure
>>> that what's important
>>> is more important than what's not.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Swarna Rangarajan
>>> <swarn...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Dear Students,
>>> > I am sending along a really beautiful narrative- The Little Prince.
>>> > The author,
>>> > Antoine de Saint-Exupery (June 29, 1900 – presumably July 31, 1944)
>>> > was a French writer and aviator. One of his most famous works is Le
>>> > Petit Prince (The Little Prince). He disappeared on the night of July
>>> > 31, 1944 while flying on a mission to collect data on German troop
>>> > movements.
>>> > The work speaks to us at many levels!
>>> > Best, swarna
>>> >
>>> > On 10/18/12, Vaishali V <vaish...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> Hello :)
>>> >>
>>> >> The essay I presented in class today was this :
>>> >> http://www.salon.com/2000/03/18/why/
>>> >>
>>> >> Another interesting essay by Pico Iyer is this - "The Joy of
>>> >>
>>> >> Quiet<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>
>>> >> "
>>> >>
>>> >> Regards,
>>> >> Vaishali
>>> >>
>>> >> --
>>> >> Vaishali V
>>> >> III Year Integrated M.A. in Economics
>>> >> Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
>>> >> +91 97910 11442 <http://start.fedoraproject.org/>
>>> >>
>>> >> --
>>> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>> >> Groups
>>> >> "Literature and Values Odd Sem" group.
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>>> >> literature-and-value...@googlegroups.com.
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>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>>
>>> --
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Vamshidhar Rao Surabhi
>> 4th Year CSE
>> IITM
>>
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
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>>
>>
>