I loved thee with a love I seemed to lose

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.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I'm not a mushy person. In fact I don't see myself as someone who is traditionally romantic. But something has happened to me recently. I guess you could say that I've become more in-tuned with my sensitive side. We read the above poem in my British Literature class today and something absolutely out of the ordinary happened: I cried.
I don't cry in public very often, if ever. And I'm known for staying away from relationships and commitment. And at every turn I debate against this idealized, romantic, unfounded notion of "love". I don't believe in "love" as associated with the fairy tales and prince charming's most of us have grown up with. But what I realized in class, while reading Browning's words to the man who would become her husband, I understood a little better what this idea of "love" was.
Browning speaks of love as something that is limitless. It is the deepest, widest, highest love that anyone can fathom. And that got me to thinking about what a limitless love means. And I think I'm slightly closer to understanding what the capacity of actual love means and what that does to the heart.