Sonnet II

But only three in all God's universe

Have heard this word thou hast said; Himself, beside

Thee speaking and me listening! and replied

One of us.. that was God!.. and laid the curse

So darkly on my eyelids as to amerce

My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,

The deathweights, placed there, would have signified

Less absolute exclusion. "Nay" is worse

From God than from all others, O my friend!

Men could not part us with their worldly jars,

Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend:

Our hands would touch, for all the mountain-bars;—

And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,

We should but vow the faster for the stars.