English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 614. Sonnets from the Portuguese |
| | | XXXVII |
| | | Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) |
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| PARDON, oh, pardon, that my soul should make, | |
| Of all that strong divineness which I know | |
| For thine and thee, an image only so | |
| Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break. | |
| It is that distant years which did not take | 5 |
| Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow, | |
| Have forced my swimming brain to undergo | |
| Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake | |
| Thy purity of likeness and distort | |
| Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit: | 10 |
| As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port, | |
| His guardian sea-god to commemorate, | |
| Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort | |
| And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate. | |
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