A Simple Gift

She came to me in a dress
of true-love and blue rocket,
with fairy-thimbles of foxglove
at the neck and wrist,
in her hair she wore a garland
of cherry laurel, herb bennet,
dwayberries and yew-berries,
twined with stems of clematis,
and at her throat she’d threaded
twists of bryony stalk, seeds
of meadow saffron and laburnum,
linked simply in a necklace,
and she was holding out
a philtre of water lovage,
red chamomile and ladies’ seal
in a cup, for me to drink.