Poems (Forrest)/Perfumery
PERFUMERY
A naked, wide-hipped woman, looking throughThe bushy blackness of her falling hair,Pressed in her palms the petals of a flower.And there arose like incense on the airA haunting breath of almonds; and the scentClung to her fingers when she locked them tightAbout the thick neck of her conquering man,Hot from the hunting, while he sniffedAs lightly as a pointer dog, the trailOf springtime on the brown skin of his bride.Then Nature laughed, to set another snareWith odorous seductions for his race.
A Queen in Egypt, finding her lord cold,Consulted that wise Shaman, who distilledFrom secret script, in red-hot crucibles,A priceless perfume. . . 'Twas but yesterdaySome excavator found her mummied armsCrossed over a small vial wrought in goldAnd lapis lazuli; and though it heldOnly a whiff of fragrance, 'twas more sweetThan blossomed acres in a mile of bloom!
A Persian woman knelt before a fireOf spices smouldering in a copper pan.A great red ruby weighed her shallow brow,An orange topaz lit her plaited hair,Her round arms faded into velvet night,Her silken garments rustled in the dark.Only her pale face showed above the glow,And one faint gleam of ivory ankles bareAbove the red morocco silver-stitched,Of heel-less slippers. Then from out the duskThere came two yellow, thin and awful handsTo grip about the satin of her throat,And, as she strangled, she could taste the smokeOf stolen incense from the High Priest's jar.
A lady in a ruff and stomacher,With ropes of pearls dependent to her waist,Crept down a stairway, when the clamorous rooksOn a grey English dawning told that dayHad come with black frosts to the frozen poolsAnd trees that creaked and shuddered in the cold.An old man sleeping in a shuttered room,With wrinkled hand against a sharpened sword,Smelled roses as she passed. He woke . . and moaned . .Her lover, too, smelled roses as he died.
I take the stopper from a phial to-day—A slender thing of crystal, with a pearlIn blue enamel on a coat of arms,And from the amber liquid prisoned there(Perhaps ten drops to prove ten thousand flowers!),I see the ghost of long dead women riseWith scented palms and little perfumed ears,Rare waters for the hollow in the throatWhere favoured lips may sip them! Creams for breasts(That need them not!) to make the curves more fair; The float of powders and of patchouli. . .Crushed violets and potpourri of the rose,The secret ambras that dark Egypt knew:The clean geranium scents of Old Japan:White rose of English brides, and orange-flower,And jasmines of bejewelled dancing girls—And all their feet are dancing still to-dayOver the hearts and brains of cozened men!