Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 37 “Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 37 “Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make”

In sonnet 37 “Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make,” the speaker dramatically begs forgiveness for not immediately recognizing the true worth and commitment of her belovèd. 

Introduction and Text of Sonnet 37 “Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet 37 “Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make,” creates an appealing tension; while the speaker again denigrates herself, she is, nevertheless, asking her belovèd for forgiveness. She had simply behaved as would an innocent pagan who could offer only the humblest gift to his protector.

Sonnet 37 “Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make”

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.

Commentary on Sonnet 37 “Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make”

The speaker continues to denigrate herself through an abundance of humility, still finding it difficult to accept her good fortune at attracting such an illustrious love interest.

First Quatrain:  An Emotional Appeal

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. 

The speaker creates an emotional appeal to her belovèd, asking pardon for her soul and simultaneously again demonstrating the level of her perceived poverty of mind and spirit. 

She implies that despite the “strong divineness,” which she now recognizes the belovèd to possess, as being “for thine and thee,” she was able to construct in her imagination only a much less exalted “image only so formed of the sand.”

Such a hastily constructed image made of mere sand was unable to endure the test of time and therefore could not do other than “shift and break.” Of course, she does not intend her belovèd to gather from this dramatic description that his image has actually broken; she is merely once again offering proof of what her poor soul was able to grasp in its sullied state prior to their meeting.

Second Quatrain: Distortion through Suffering

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 

Again, the speaker recounts that having suffered for so many years has distorted her ability to recognize the true and the beautiful. She has needed constant tutoring in order to bring her perceptions in line with reality.  She has many times averred that she believes whole- heartedly that her belovèd possesses a genuine heart, and she believes his love for her is nothing but pure gold.

Yet again, she must protect her heart, in case her early perceptions are false. She blames her feeble thought process on her “swimming brain.” Having been disoriented by the possibility of finding such a pure love, she could not keep that brain from entertaining thoughts of “doubt and dread.”

First Tercet:  The Wages of Blindness

Thy purity of likeness and distort
Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit:
As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port, 

Thus, she now realizes that she was quite blind in “forsak[ing] / / Thy purity.” She, therefore, must ask “pardon” from having thought of his love as possibly nothing more than “a worthless counterfeit.”  The speaker separates her thought over the second quatrain and first tercet. Thus, after she remarks, “blindly to forsake,” she breaks the line to complete it in the second tercet. 

This construction gives the object of “to forsake” more emphasis after inserting the pause created by the break.  She then begins the construction of a simileic metaphor of a “shipwrecked Pagan,” and again breaks the image over the two tercets for the same emphasis.

Second Tercet:  Schooling the Poor Pagan

His guardian sea-god to commemorate,
Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort
And vibrant tail, within the temple gate.

This poor Pagan, who is “safe in port,” constructs “a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort / And vibrant tail,” to honor the “sea-god” who has protected him. While worthy in a very humble way, such a gift would not be appropriate to place “within the temple-gate.”   But the poor Pagan would not be able to know better, until he had been schooled in the finer arts in life.