Sonnet II:
II
To say I love thee, is but uttering
A worn-out phrase. The opal-breasted dove
Coos the same story to his feathered love,
The hills, the meadows, and the forests ring
With various changes on the self-same string.
In vain my fancy labors to improve
That common utterance; for the heart will rove
From the more complex to the simpler thing.
A homely creature is the human heart;
And better pleased with such poor crumbs as fall
From straitened Nature, than the gilded pall
That bears the feast of ostentatious Art.
So let me circle backward to my start:
I can but say, I love thee, after all.
