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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  Perfume

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

II. Love’s Nature

Perfume

Sir Edmund William Gosse (1849–1928)

WHAT gift for passionate lovers shall we find?

Not flowers nor books of verse suffice for me,

Nor splinters of the odorous cedar-tree,

And tufts of pine-buds, oozy in the wind;

Give me young shoots of aromatic rind,

Or samphire, redolent of sand and sea,

For all such fragrances I deem to be

Fit with my sharp desire to be combined.

My heart is like a poet, whose one room,

Scented with Latakia faint and fine,

Dried rose-leaves, and spilt attar, and old wine,

From curtained windows gathers its warm gloom

Round all but one sweet picture where incline

His thoughts and fancies mingled with perfume.