Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TWO PASSIONATE ONES PART, by LEONORA SPEYER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TWO PASSIONATE ONES PART, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Why stamp the sovereign fires out?
Last Line: And safe to care, too wise to know.
Subject(s): Ghosts; Supernatural


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

Had you but let them race and roar,
Scorch and consume you as they willed,
Tossing the hot ash far, fulfilled,

Where it had lain inviolate,
On pyres of peace like an ardent dew . . .
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 bright, unsatisfied!

These are the fires shall warm you now,
Sit and dream at them, dream and sigh,
These are the dead that cannot die.

Fires are meant to leap and fade,
Who are you to rule otherwise,
Monarchs with madness in your eyes?

Who are you to challenge change?
What, would you carve love's wings in stone?
Fling them your sky! Their course is their own.

Grieving, impetuous, passionate two,
You would canonize a kiss,
What would the good saints say to this?

Trample your fires! Kindle your ghosts!
Sit and speak with them, groan and weep,
But I know a cave where centuars sleep:

High, purple home of the learned beast,
Echoing wisdom and arched to bear
The weight of the voices rumbling there.

And there I learned of contented hearts
Too close to see when dreams burn low,
And safe to care, too wise to know.





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