The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke

Sonnet: "I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true"

   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.