The Fool

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.

"I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true" - Rupert Brooke