Queen Anne’s Lace

Queen Anne’s Lace… it’s just a weed growing along

the roadside and fencerows, but there is something

that I love about it with its ferny leaves and funny

smell and all the memories of hot summer days.    

Queen Anne’s Lace

By Mary Leslie Newton    

Queen Anne, Queen Anne, has washed her lace,
(She chose a summer's day)
And hung it in a grassy place
To whiten, if it may.

Queen Anne, Queen Anne, has left it there,
And slept the dewy night;
Then waked, to find the sunshine fair,
And all the meadows white.

Queen Anne, Queen Anne, is dead and gone
(She died a summer's day),
But left her lace to whiten in
Each weed-entangled way!

 

Legend says that Queen Anne
gave the ladies of her court a
challenge to see who could create
the most beautiful piece of lace. 
No one could match the Queen’s
exquisite work, but while she
was at work, she pricked her
finger and a drop of blood fell
on her handiwork.  That is why
there’s a wine colored center in
most of the flowers.

 

When I see the lacy flowers I think of the beginning of a poem I used to read a long time ago.

                                          Queen's Lace
                                                             By Edith Shank

                                         Fragile and lovely as old lace,
                                         But just a roadside weed;
                                         Tall and slender in regal grace,
                                         And faithful to its breed
                                    Ever growing loosely wild,
                                         With the pose of Nature's child…

He has made everything beautiful in its time. 

  He has also set eternity in the human heart;

yet no one can fathom what God has done from

 beginning to end. 

Ecclesiastes 3:11