Sonnets from the Portuguese: 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.