Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 97-102
(Alas! we two, we two, thou say'st!
Yea, one wast thou with me
That once of old. But shall God lift
To endless unity
The soul whose likeness with thy soul
Was but its love for thee?)
- We interrupt the damsel's fantasy to bring you this parenthetical snippet from her lover, once again from a first-person perspective.
- The guy is worried that the two of them will never be unified together, like they once were ("one wast thou with me/ once of old") (98-99).
- He's concerned that God may not lift him up to heaven to be with her, because he may not be worthy enough. He addresses the young woman and describes himself as "The soul whose likeness with thy soul/ Was but its love for thee?" (101-102).
- In other words, the only thing that made his soul a candidate for heaven was his love for the damsel. He's worried that, on his own, he won't make the cut.