Classic Poem

After the tossed white sea a pool of green still water
Wherein some white-limbed nymph the great green oak-tree's daughter
Bathes with blue laughing eyes:
After the fierce wild storm the blue sky pure and tender:
After bronzed brows of men a woman's untanned splendour:
After the night the royal red sunrise:

After the weary day the night-time cool and gracious:
After the city-walls a golden cornfield spacious
Wherein red poppies gleam:
Upon the Atlantic surge a lonely wave-tossed vessel
Whose masts in the mad wind bend, shriek, and toil, and wrestle,—
Yet in the cabin eyes where love-thoughts dream:

These contrasts all are sweet:—Yet sweeter than the sweetest
It was when thou didst come, of all loves far the fleetest,
The swiftest tenderest thing,—
Contrasting with my past thine own ethereal brightness
And with the black pain-cloud thy more than sea-bird's whiteness,
As through yon rain-cloud flashes one white wing.