Sonnet 10

I have sought Happiness, but it has been

A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit,

And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit

More fair of outward hue than sweet within.

Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment

Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil,

There only, chastened by fatigue and toil,

I knew what came the nearest to content.

For there at least my troubled flesh was free

From the gadfly Desire that plagued it so;

Discord and Strife were what I used to know,

Heartaches, deception, murderous jealousy;

By War transported far from all of these,

Amid the clash of arms I was at peace.