Say that the men of the old black tower,
Though they but feed as the goatherd feeds,
Their money spent, their wine gone sour,
Lack nothing that a soldier needs,
That all are oath-bound men:
Those banners come not in.
There in the tomb stand the dead upright,
But winds come up from the shore:
They shake when the winds roar,
Old bones upon the mountain shake.
Those banners come to bribe or threaten,
Or whisper that a man’s a fool
Who, when his own right king’s forgotten,
Cares what king sets up his rule.
If he died long ago
Why do you dread us so?
There in the tomb drops the faint moonlight,
But wind comes up from the shore:
They shake when the winds roar,
Old bones upon the mountain shake.
The tower’s old cook that must climb and clamber
Catching small birds in the dew of the morn
When we hale men lie stretched in slumber
Swears that he hears the king’s great horn.
But he’s a lying hound:
Stand we on guard oath-bound!
There in the tomb the dark grows blacker,
But wind comes up from the shore:
They shake when the winds roar,
Old bones upon the mountain shake.
A sepulchral, desolate scent. Long-dead soldiers, oath-bound; the perfume of their armor, the chill wind that surges through their tower, white bone and blackened steel: white sandalwood, ambergris, wet ozone, galbanum and leather with ebony, teak, burnt grasses, English ivy and a hint of red wine.
The Graveyard Book Collection.
Nuri –
Everything about this scent makes me happy. I love Gaiman, The Graveyard Book and BPAL so what is not to love about The Potter’s Field. It truly smells like a place once cultivated by people and now allowed to fall back into nature. It opens with a damp green scent. It reminds me of wet grass at the bottom of a big pile of clippings. The green aspect is wet instead of fresh and it melds into an herb-y quality that never seems food or head-shop like before it settles down to a clean dirt kind of smell. Which is kind of like the scent of your own skin but better. The vetiver notes at first whiff are pretty sharp but they quickly melt away, which is too bad. I felt like I went immediately from too much vetiver to none very quickly. However the dry down is so lovely you won’t feel cheated. The sillage is short lived for BPAL. I find I have to reapply once or twice throughout the day but on the plus side I enjoy this one so much I actually do reapply.