Page:Collected poems of Rupert Brooke.djvu/56

 SONNET

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.