ROBERT BROWNING

- Song from 'Paracelsus'

TLJ E AP 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, 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 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, As when a queen, long dead, was young.

��716. The Wanderers

��the sea our galleys went, With cleaving prows in order brave To a speeding wind and a bounding wave

A gallant armament : Each bark built out of a forest-tree

Left leafy and rough as first it grew, And nail'd all over the gaping sides, Within and without, with black bull-hides, Seethed in fat and suppled in flame, 85*

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