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.
More verses by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- Sonnet 27 - My Own Beloved, Who Hast Lifted Me
- Sonnet 12 - Indeed This Very Love Which Is My Boast
- Sonnet 23 - Is It Indeed So? If I Lay Here Dead
- Minstrelsy
- To George Sand: A Desire