Though my senses serve me well,
For delicacy, give me Smell.

The perfume of a bank of thyme,
Milk-heavy kine at homing time;
The burn of brush in Autumn air,
Green pippins piled for Winter care;
The tang of wrack at low of tide,
Blythe new-mown hay on meadow side.

Crisp bacon on the blaze to fry,
Old ale in tankard foaming high;
Aroma sweet of baking break,
Rich onion soup for super spread;
Roast beans of coffee, newly ground,
A morning kipper, buttered, browned.

The perfume of a silken slip,
The salty odour of a ship;
Morocco leather, Harris tweed,
The acrid air of stabled steed;
The pungency of paint and tar,
The fragrance of a fine cigar.

A piny wood, a clover lea,
A hawthorn hedge, a rosary;
A clump of wallflower, dewy wet,
And frankincense and mignonette...
But sweeter than them all, I swear,
The scent of Shiela's shampooed hair.