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Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Sonnet XXXVII: Pardon, Oh, Pardon
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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 
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: 
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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