Lavender
Gray walls that lichen stains,
That take the sun and the rains,
Old, stately, and wise:
Clipt yews, old lawns flag-bordered,
In ancient ways yet ordered;
South walks where the loud bee plies
Daylong till Summer flies—
Here grows Lavender, here breathes England.
Gay cottage gardens, glad,
Comely, unkempt, and mad,
Jumbled, jolly, and quaint;
Nooks where some old man dozes;
Currants and beans and roses
Mingling without restraint;
A wicket that long lacks paint—
Here grows Lavender, here breathes England.
Sprawling for elbow-room,
Spearing straight spikes of bloom,
Clean, wayward, and tough;
Sweet and tall and slender,
True, enduring, and tender,
Buoyant and bold and bluff,
Simplest, sanest of stuff—
Thus grows Lavender, thence breathes England.
W. W. Blair Fish