What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning, but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more. Unknown
About This Quote

The poem by B. Traven, “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed” is an account of a sailor whose love turns out to be not what he really wanted. The narrator falls in love with a girl named Maria, but when he arrives in her village, she tells him that she has not seen him before in her life. He keeps trying to convince her that he is the same man she loved for so long, but she is sure that the man who came to see her was someone else. Life turns out to be more complicated than the sailor imagined it to be, and this poem captures an idea of what keeps us from being happy in life.

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