Elizabeth Barrett was born in Durham England in 1806, the first daughter of affluent parents who owned sugar plantations in Jamaica. She was home-schooled and read voraciously in history, philosophy and literature. Young Elizabeth learned Hebrew in order to read original Bible texts and Greek in order to read original Greek drama and philosophy. She began writing poems when she was 12 years old, though she did not publish her first collection for another twenty years. Elizabeth …showed first 75 words of 832 total…

…showed last 75 words of 832 total…more ways that she loves Robert. Her "passion put to use in my old griefs" refers to the depth of her former despair. The love that "I seemed to lose with my lost saints" refers to the lost loves of her mother and her brother. The love poem ends with the declaration that time and death will not diminish her love for Robert because "if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."