Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


LAVENDER by ARCHIE AUSTIN COATES

First Line: THE TWILIGHT HANGS LIKE SMOKE IN THE STREETS
Last Line: AND MAY DREAM NO MORE!
Subject(s): LAVENDER;

The twilight hangs like smoke in the streets,
Pearly, veiling all the stretches in illusion;
And the new-lit lamps are the glow of hearts
That grope unseeing and unseen.

At the corner a lean young girl offers me lavender,
Offers me youth and romance to hold in my palm, closed -- thus.

She gives dreams to the world,
She who knows nought of dreams --
Gives gardens, and waters, and the young shy moon
Hung in the laurels;
Gives the smoke of evening in the willows,
And the complaining stream,
And the lavender's subtle reawakening of old, dead thoughts.

These, all these she gives, this lean girl --
(A shawl is over her head and her eyes look into the darkness).
What does @3she@1 know of dreams?
How more happy is she than I who have dreamed,
And may dream no more!



Home: PoetryExplorer.net