"Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes"

"Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes" 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 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 unrolled; Or shredded perfume, like a cloud From closet long to quiet vowed, With mothed and dropping arras hung, Mouldering her lute and books among, As when a queen, long dead, was young. Robert Browning This poem is composed of two stanzas of eight verses each. The first four seem to describe a certain woman's physical attributes, especially what she wears. Even in the title, which is also the first verse of the poem, there is a part of this description. In the first stanza the descrition seems a very dlightful one: the speaker talks about her hair and treasure. It almost seems like a praise to this woman, but there is also a tone which preludes to the second stanza. In this second stanza the description becomes more morbid and gruesome. In verse ten "Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud" there is an interesting contrast. The words "fine" and "worm-eaten" together create an image that is pleasing and disgusting at the same time. Other words like "shredded" and "plume" (verse twelve) give this sense of good and bad at the same time. The poem ends with "As when a queen, long dead, was young." This could explain the reason why there are worms and shredded plumes: the woman is dead. But even in death she is as beautiful as she was in life. The woman in this poem could have been a dead Egyptian Queen