Penned in Passion, Still Stealing Hearts

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Byline: NICK MASON

A SONNET penned by a sick middle-aged woman in the midst of her passion for a young admirer was named Britain's favourite love poem yesterday.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's How Do I Love Thee? one of a collection of poems written for Robert Browning, with whom she eloped, still strikes a chord with romantics, a BBC poll to coincide with National Poetry Day reveals.

Other poems in the top ten include W B Yeats's He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven, Robert Burns's A Red, Red Rose and William Shakespeare's sonnets Let Me Not To The Marriage of True Minds and Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?

The only postwar poet to find a …