My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high:
It was begotten by despair
Upon Impossibility.
Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'r have flown
But vainly flapt its Tinsel Wing.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended Soul is fixt,
But Fate does Iron wedges drive,
And alwaies crouds it self betwixt.
For Fate with jealous Eye does see
Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close:
The speaker combines the abstract and concrete by comparing Fate to an ‘iron wedge’. Fate’s power is harsh and unyielding. This echoes an idea in Marvell’s  His Coy Mistress , where time — that is fate and the future — is perceived to be the enemy of two lovers.
The Definition of Love