Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Robert Browning. 18121889715. Song from ‘Paracelsus’
HEAP cassia, sandal-buds and stripes | |
Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, | |
Smear’d with dull nard an Indian wipes | |
From out her hair: such balsam falls | |
Down sea-side mountain pedestals, | 5 |
From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, | |
Spent with the vast and howling main, | |
To treasure half their island-gain. | |
And strew faint sweetness from some old | |
Egyptian’s fine worm-eaten shroud | 10 |
Which breaks to dust when once unroll’d; | |
Or shredded perfume, like a cloud | |
From closet long to quiet vow’d, | |
With moth’d and dropping arras hung, | |
Mouldering her lute and books among, | 15 |
As when a queen, long dead, was young. |