 Helen Vendler, writing in "The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets", is in agreement with Landry that the closing line is largely propitiatory though she arrives at this conclusion without including Sonnet 53 within a group of separation sonnets.She notes that the youth having, "millions of adorers…hover about him together with his millions of seductive shadows," and an androgynous beauty, as comparable to Adonis as Helen, that doubles the number of potential admirers puts the youth in a particularly dangerous situation to give in to temptation.Anthony Hecht's third book of poetry is titled "Millions of Strange Shadows" in reference to the second line.