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.

Sonnet: I Said I Splendidly Loved You; It's Not True

by Rupert Brooke, 1916