According to the speaker, the problem is that Fate cannot allow “Two perfect loves” to come together. Doing so would overthrow Fate’s power, so Fate has placed the two lovers into physically separate spaces, like “distant poles” that can never come together. They must remain separate, the speaker laments, unless “giddy Heaven” falls or the entire world is suddenly “cramped into a planisphere.” The speaker then compares the lovers’ connection to two infinite lines, each of which forms a perfect circle. Because these lines are parallel, though, they shall never intersect. Therefore, the speaker concludes, Fate has enviously thwarted the love that binds him to his beloved, and the only way they can be together is in a union of their minds.