Sonnet VI: He who has lost so much, stern Deity

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.