The Hundred Best Poems (lyrical) in the English language - second series/Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes
8.
Song from "Paracelsus."
HEAP cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes
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 summits 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;
And shred dim perfume, like a cloud
From chamber long to quiet vowed,
With mothed and dropping arras hung,
Mouldering the lute and books among
Of queen, long dead, who lived there young
1841 Edition.