|
|
Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SEA LAVENDER, by LOUISE MOREY BOWMAN Poet's Biography First Line: My puritan grandmother! - I see her now Last Line: In her dear treasures of sea shells and weed. Subject(s): Beauty; Grandparents; Sea; Shells; Treasures; Weeds; Grandmothers; Grandfathers; Great Grandfathers; Great Grandmothers; Ocean; Conchology | |||
My Puritan Grandmother!—I see her now, With placid brow, Always so sure That no things but the right things shall endure! Sombrely neat, so orderly and prim, Always a little grim, Austere but kind. ... Smooth-banded hair and smoothly-banded mind. But let me whisper it to you to-day— I know it now— That deep in her there was a flame at play. Beneath that brow The blue-grey eyes sought beauty, found it too Most often by the ocean's passionate blue. Her sea-beach treasures—shells and coloured weed Gathered and hoarded with glad human greed— They warm my heart to-day with insight new. How vividly I see her, frail and old, A tiny, black-clothed figure on the beach, Compactly wrapped against the sea-wind's cold, Patiently waiting till waves let her reach Some sandy strip, where purple, amber, green, Her lacy sea-weed treasures could be seen. (She pressed and mounted them—frail tangled things! Handled by her, fit to trim fairies' wings.) So I recall her, Searching salt-sea pools For Beauty's shadow. All her rigid rules, And cold austereness with a storm-tossed child, Melt into airs of evenings, warm and mild. And I find revelation, sweet indeed, In her dear treasures of sea shells and weed. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TANKA DIARY (2) by HARRYETTE MULLEN APPRECIATION by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH TO SOME LADIES [ON RECEIVING A CURIOUS SHELL] by JOHN KEATS ON SOME SHELLS FOUND INLAND by TRUMBULL STICKNEY WITH A NANTUCKET SHELL by CHARLES HENRY WEBB AN ENGLISH SHELL by ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON SONG OF THE SHELL by HENRY NEHEMIAH DODGE THE LITTLE BOY FOUND, FR. SONGS OF INNOCENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE |
| |