Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXXVII
Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXXVII
Original Text
A Selection from the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. First Series. New Edition. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1886. 1: 181-202.
1Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make
2Of all that strong divineness which I know
3For thine and thee, an image only so
4Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.
5It is that distant years which did not take
6Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,
7Have forced my swimming brain to undergo
8Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake
9Thy purity of likeness and distort
11As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port,
12His guardian sea-god to commemorate,
13Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort
14And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.
Notes
10] terminal period changed to a colon Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1850
RPO poem Editors
Marc R. Plamondon
RPO Edition
2007
Form