Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/898

 ROBERT BROWNING

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.

726 The Wanderers


 * VER 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, To bear the playful billows' game, So, each good ship was rude to see, Rude and bare to the outward view.

But each upbore a stately tent Where cedar pales in scented row Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine, And an awning droop'd the mast below, In fold on fold of the purple fine, That neither noontide nor star-shine Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad,

Might pierce the regal tenement. When the sun dawn'd, O, gay and glad

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