Sonnet 44

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,

Injurious distance should not stop my way;

For then, despite of space, I would be brought

From limits far remote where thou dost stay.

No matter then although my foot did stand

Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,

For nimble thought can jump both sea and land

As soon as think the place where he would be.

But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought,

To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,

But that, so much of earth and water wrought,

I must attend time’s leisure with my moan:

Receiving naught by elements so slow

But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.

If all my body could be turned to thought,

Like a caterpillar wisped up in a butterfly,

Nothing, no distance, would stand in my way—not

Mountain, not valley, not ocean, not sky.

What of it then, if I slept tonight

On beaches the farthest removed from you?

Play of thought is like a ray of light,

And in an instant, I could think of you.

But ah, it kills me to be a thinker and not a thought,

Unable to move in the way of my mind:

Without thinking, over distances, all time forgot.

No, I have only the slowest, longest way to find.

Heavy as the earth, prevented by the sea,

I’m rooted here in sorrow, tears falling deep from me.