Sonnets, Etc, VI

He who has lost so much, stern Deity, Can lose no more! oh Love, let what has past Suffice thee—let it profit me at last Ne'er to have shrunk from thy supreme decree. On the white walls of thy pure sanctuary My pictured tablets and dank robes I hung, Ev'n as a shipwrecked solitary, flung Safely ashore from thy tempestuous sea. Then vowed I never more to trust the bliss, At my command and option, to the guile Of such another syren, but from this How shall vows save me? in the risk I run I break no vow, for neither is her smile Like others' smiles, nor in my power to shun.