LAVENDER

LAVENDER

Lavender, lavender
That makes your linen sweet;
The hawker brings his basket
Down the sooty street:
The dirty doors and pavements
Are simmering in the heat:
He brings a dream to London,
And drags his weary feet.

Lavender, lavender,
From where the bee hums,
To the loud roar of London,
With purple dreams he comes,
From ragged lanes of wild-flowers
To ragged London slums,
With a basket full of lavender
And purple dreams he comes.
Is it nought to you that hear him?
With the old strange cry
The weary hawker passes,
And some will come and buy,
And some will let him pass away
And only heave a sigh,
But most will neither heed nor hear
When dreams go by.

_Lavender, lavender!
His songs were fair and sweet,
He brought us harvests out of heaven,
Full sheaves of radiant wheat;
He brought us keys to Paradise,
And hawked them thro' the street;
He brought his dreams to London,
And dragged his weary feet.
_
Lavender, lavender!
He is gone. The sunset glows;
But through the brain of London
The mystic fragrance flows.
Each foggy cell remembers,
Each ragged alley knows,
The land he left behind him,
The land to which he goes.
ALFRED NOYES

Photo: Paço de Arcos, 04.06.2010