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The Enchanted Scented Candles

There once was an alchemist gifted with the mortar and pestle,
Who could combine magic with herbs and wax in a glass vessel.

She used charms and floral elixirs to make enchanted scented candles,
Which melted under flames whose brewed fumes burnt wood of sandal.

One day a princess from the Fertile Crescent came to her store to buy,
Some hand-rolled incense for all her people who live in lands ever so dry. 

For her people were distraught by the shame of the sands,
In their odorous markets entrenched by world traders' demands.

She had asked an apothecary from a market in her village,
For a way to freshen the lands that foreign trader's had pillaged. 

The apothecary said, "My dear, you must visit an alchemist outside the city,
Who makes candles so fine they would impress a fine-robed gorgeous gypsy."

So the princess set out to find she who makes candles craftily,
With a peculiar and profound method of magical alchemy. 

When the princess found the alchemist she asked for a wax candle scent,
That would impress all those who smelled it and hide the market's ferment.

So the alchemist made her a bunch of candles with nine herbs held in several glass quarts,
Cockspur, lamb's cress, plantain, mayweed, nettle, crab-apple, thyme, fennel, and mugwort. 

So the princess placed these glass candles she brought,
Around her market and asked each sniffer what they thought.

One man claimed he smelt roses while a woman smelt lavender,
And a child smelt honey while an elder smelt chocolate and coriander.

Confused about the mixed reactions, the princess returned to the alchemist,
And asked why many people claimed to smell different scents, including piss.

The alchemist replied "I sold you some candles meant to impress,
All those who smell them, smelled something different I guess?

For the candles I made you emit that which you might tell,
Of the most pleasant of scents that one can ever smell."

Copyright © Beej Simrov | Year Posted 2017

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