The poem describes various aromatic substances like cassia, sandalwood, labdanum, and aloe gathered from trees and mountains by the sea. These fragrances fall like balsam from places where winds rest after interacting with the vast ocean, carrying faint sweet scents to treasure from their travels. The aromas are compared to fine dust from a worm-eaten Egyptian shroud that breaks upon unrolling, or to a cloud of shredded perfume drifting from a long-untouched closet holding a mouldering lute and books, as from a place where a long-dead queen was once young.
The poem describes various aromatic substances like cassia, sandalwood, labdanum, and aloe gathered from trees and mountains by the sea. These fragrances fall like balsam from places where winds rest after interacting with the vast ocean, carrying faint sweet scents to treasure from their travels. The aromas are compared to fine dust from a worm-eaten Egyptian shroud that breaks upon unrolling, or to a cloud of shredded perfume drifting from a long-untouched closet holding a mouldering lute and books, as from a place where a long-dead queen was once young.
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The poem describes various aromatic substances like cassia, sandalwood, labdanum, and aloe gathered from trees and mountains by the sea. These fragrances fall like balsam from places where winds rest after interacting with the vast ocean, carrying faint sweet scents to treasure from their travels. The aromas are compared to fine dust from a worm-eaten Egyptian shroud that breaks upon unrolling, or to a cloud of shredded perfume drifting from a long-untouched closet holding a mouldering lute and books, as from a place where a long-dead queen was once young.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes From out her hair: such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals, 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 Which breaks to dust when once unrolled; Or shredded perfume, like a cloud From closet long to quiet vowed, With mothed and dropping arras hung, Mouldering her lute and books among, As when a queen, long dead, was young.