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.