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Another of my favorite poets is Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

She has the distinction of being a literary discovery of mine which was outside the classroom. Having encountered her work in the town library of Hanahan, South Carolina during one of my innumerable childhood visits I would read and wonder about the words and what they meant.

I noticed that she had a definitive religious influence in many of her pieces. She also displayed a distinctive penchant for profoundly tender, passionate affection and I think this is what I found most attractive about her writing.

Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett
aka Elizabeth Barrett Browning

March 6, 1806 – June 29, 1861

Prominent poet of the Victorian era. Her poetry was popular in both the United States and Great Britain during her lifetime.

A collection of her last poems was published by her husband shortly after her death.

Sonnet XLIII

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 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.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My good friend the late Dewitt Casey was an artist. He had a uncanny ability to reproduce things on paper, sculpture, and carving that were realistic and exhibited a polish and style which became characteristic of his work.

This hallmark was evident to the point that I became able to recognize things that he had done in the local area — even though I may not have ever seen him working on them … and I watched him work on many pieces over the years.

Most every holiday I would try to get him a sketch book and other things that would stimulate him to create just so I could see what he’d come up with next.

We often spoke of art and artisans from a historical perspective and he told me that Michelangelo was that artist which inspired him the most throughout his life. When I asked him why this was so he related that the massive body of work he created and the realism he imparted to the subject matter was the allure.

Like Dewitt, Michelangelo worked in mixed media and was not a person who worked in a single area of artistic endeavor. Like Michelangelo, Dewitt possessed that ability to impart realism on paper, canvas, and to the three dimensional sculptures he created.

I have cultivated an appreciation for Michelangelo over the years. I appreciated Dewitt from the day I met him. Though they are both gone now, they live on through their work.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
aka Michelangelo
aka Il Divino “the divine one”

March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564

Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer.

Contemporary and rival of Leonardo da Vinci.

He inspired the artistic movement which became known as Mannerism, in which artists attempted to imitate his artistic style.

Michelangelo’s was a man of prodigious creativity.

The massive volume of sketches, paintings, frescoes, and sculptures — as well as letters and reminiscences that survive to this day makes him one of the best-documented artists of the 1500s.