After Soufrière / Michael Field

   
After Soufrière

It is not grief or pain;
But like the even dropping of the rain,
That thou art gone.
It is not like a grave
To weep upon;
But like the rise and falling of a wave
When the vessel's gone.
It is like the sudden void
When the city is destroyed,
Where the sun shone;
There is neither grief nor pain
But the wide waste come again.

---
Michael Field
1902

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Michael Field biography