Читаю ці сонети постійно. Цікаво було б побачити оригінал... Дуже "згущений" образ.

Примітка
Поганин (язичник) -- прихильник нехристиянських первісних релігійних вірувань, що культивували поклоніння багатьом богам.

Elizabeth Browning Sonnets from the Portugeuse
37
Pardon, o 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 breake.
It is that distant years which did not take
Thy sovranity, 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.