Christopher Morley

Smells

Why is it that the poets tell

So little of the sense of smell?

These are the odors I love well:


The smell of coffee freshly ground;

Or rich plum pudding, holly crowned;

Or onions fried and deeply browned.


The fragrance of a fumy pipe;

The smell of apples, newly ripe;

And printers' ink on leaden type.


Woods by moonlight in September

Breathe most sweet; and I remember

Many a smoky camp-fire ember.


Camphor, turpentine, and tea,

The balsam of a Christmas tree,

These are whiffs of gramarye . . .

A ship smells best of all to me!