Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXXVII

Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should makeOf all that strong divineness which I knowFor thine and thee, an image only soFormed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.It is that distant years which did not takeThy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,Have forced my swimming brain to undergoTheir doubt and dread, and blindly to forsakeThy purity of likeness and distortThy 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-snortAnd vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.