How do I Love Thee? In Homage to Bartlett's Roget's Thesaurus

Battered but much loved

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee for thy depth and breadth and scope,
For chemical elements and common allotropes,
For thy hundred ways of describing grace.
I love thee as the answer to everyday's 
most desperate need, to find perfect verbs.
I love thee for sounds: plops, ticks, clinks, whirrs.
I love thee purely for exalt, extol, praise.
I love thee for creatures' collective terms;
For a skulk of foxes and bears: a sleuth.
I love thee for phobias listed by names,
For eternal verities: the true and the truth,
For the right and the flawless, the flicks and the flames
I shall love thee ever, for thou art my proof. 

                                                                (with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

You may have gathered that I love this thesaurus. If you have a lust for language then buy it and indulge in it – it is a truly matchless tome. 

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