Can the spice-rose

drip such acrid fragrance

hardened in a leaf?

[2]

[2]

THE HELMSMAN

O be swift—

we have always known you wanted us.

We fled inland with our flocks,

we pastured them in hollows,

cut off from the wind

and the salt track of the marsh.

We worshipped inland—

we stepped past wood-flowers,

we forgot your tang,

we brushed wood-grass.

We wandered from pine-hills

through oak and scrub-oak tangles,

we broke hyssop and bramble,

we caught flower and new bramble-fruit

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