Classic Poem

She liked to know sea-captains
Were in her blood—
The twanging ropes, the smell of tar,
Sails white as milk and beautiful as clouds,
And storms (here she was vaguer)
But storms certainly,
Where ancestors in tightly buttoned coats
Stood on sharp-tilted decks, while lightning made
Their eyes gleam green.
She knew wharves well, and had seen Chinamen,
And there were broken chessmen her great-uncle
Had brought home his last voyage—so, in short,
She drank her tea not quite as others do.