I have sought Happiness, but it has been <br />A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit, <br />And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit <br />More fair of outward hue than sweet within. <br />Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment <br />Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil, <br />There only, chastened by fatigue and toil, <br />I knew what came the nearest to content. <br />For there at least my troubled flesh was free <br />From the gadfly Desire that plagued it so; <br />Discord and Strife were what I used to know, <br />Heartaches, deception, murderous jealousy; <br />By War transported far from all of these, <br />Amid the clash of arms I was at peace.<br /><br />Alan Seeger<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-10-5/
