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This is my article ‘Paradise Found’ composed into a poem because I had thought I could not use a picture in the article, and I had so wanted to post the picture of Lymington you see here. But I was wrong, so I have posted both prose and poem, I hope for your delight.

From the sweet imagination of a storytelling great,
Accommodating jewels, some of them ornate,
Aladdin’s cave provided a scene from fairyland
Where dreams and hopes existed, along with drifting sand.

Walking by, this shop looks drab, old and uninviting.
Perhaps a place to walk inside if the wind is biting.
Yet just one look and the spell is cast, will only take a second,
And then you’ll know the secret of why your heart was beckoned.

Lengths of cloth hang in windows with no sophistication,
While dressed and pinned a single model views your mystication,
Displaying with a studied calm, and unaffected glory
Design and dress that stirs your heart, and starts to write a story.
Takes you back to a time long gone when women darned and mended,
And dreamed of love, and with their heart all their hopes defended.

Be careful when you walk inside this enchanted cave
For once you touch, desire will rise and then become a slave
To wants and needs you never knew were hiding in your soul
To own and wear a lovely weave now your only goal.

Passing through a narrow porch where bolts of cloth are stacked,
Then moving on to hidden rooms where even more are racked,
You’ll pass your hand across the top and start your own seduction
And then succumb to weakness felt when offered a reduction.

A honeycomb of little rooms, alcoves, corners, niches
Are filled to overflowing with fabrics of these riches.
Twisting stairs all brightly lit from a stained glass window
Are lined with cloth and each one vies, and begs to be your beau.

Voiles and lawns, linens and cottons, are spread in such profusion,
While deep and lovely velvets hang, to add to your confusion
Wool from light viyella to a heavy blanket sit, one upon the other,
And Scottish plaids I know will ask if they may be your lover
Brocades defy that you should pass without a single comment
While silks from Eastern lands will make your heart lament
That you have not the wherewithal to purchase every bale,
That if this lovely place was yours you’d never make a sale.