Rupert Chawner Brooke

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                  Sonnet

I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true.
 Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea.
On gods or fools the high risk falls -- on you --
 The clean clear bitter-sweet that's not for me.
Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist.
 Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell.
But -- there are wanderers in the middle mist,
 Who cry for shadows, clutch, and cannot tell
Whether they love at all, or, loving, whom:
 An old song's lady, a fool in fancy dress,
Or phantoms, or their own face on the gloom;
 For love of Love, or from heart's loneliness.
Pleasure's not theirs, nor pain.  They doubt, and sigh,
 And do not love at all.  Of these am I.