Sea Lavender
Reading edition
Upon the marsh a filmy blur As delicate as gossamer; A wraith of fog, a vaporous wisp With stem and leaves and branches crisp, Their fibre toughened by the gale, Can plant so hardy seem so frail? Half hidden mid its stalks of green The flowerets are scarcely seen As dainty specks of ocean’s blue, Or bits of sky that filtered through, To melt in tints of amethyst As evanescent as the mist. And now through many a lacey line That fairy fingers intertwine Upon my mantelpiece at last You shed the fragrance of the past; A wraith of marshland witchery - A floral memory of the sea.