Composition

Outer composition

The outer composition of the poem “How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is typical of a sonnet and has 14 lines. 

The poem has a fixed rhyme scheme, with the first eight lines following an enclosed rhyme scheme (abba): 

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. (ll. 1-4)

This adds to the musicality of the poem.

The last six lines of the sonnet follow an alternate rhyme (abab):

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. (ll-11-14)

This change in rhyming pattern at the end of th...