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.