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Love-Sonnets

by Evelyn Douglas [i.e. J. E. Barlas]
  

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 I. 
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 III. 
 IV. 
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 IX. 
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 LXI. 
 LXII. 
 LXIII. 
 LXIV. 


19

XI.

[Why are we thus divided having kissed?]

Why are we thus divided having kissed?
Why are we yet two bodies and not one?
Why have our separate spirits leave to run
Two sundered paths of thought? what laws resist
The perfect bond whereof we dimly wist?
Love, incomplete, seems ever but begun,
And yearns to consummation never won,
His purpose always nearly gained,—and missed.
As mournful waves with desolate delight
That moaning kiss the same sands night by night
In changeless hunger, and are not appeased:
So I, who famish at possession's goal,
Must kiss and kiss, yet kisses ne'er console
Love's over-burdened heart that is not eased.