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Two Passionate Ones Part

Why stamp the sovereign fires out?
They would have burned themselves away,
Finally flickered red to gray.

Had you but let them lift and roar,
Scorch and consume you, whirl and dart,
Ember on ember as heart on heart!

What had divided the fiery dust,
Ashes of you, and ashes of you?
Pity, pity, impatient two!

Now you go reeling out of love—
Look, as you stumble on alone:
This is the way you would have gone!

Why not have walked it hand in hand,
One-time lovers and all-time friends?
Love has a hundred gentle ends.

Ends—and beyonds—oh ghosts of flames
That never lived, that never died,
Bitter and lean, unsatisfied—

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