To please you, Jewess, jewel!
  I have thinned my harem out!
Must every flirting of your fan
  Presage a dying shout?

Grace for the damsels tender
  Who have fear to hear your laugh,
For seldom gladness gilds your lips
  But blood you mean to quaff.

In jealousy so zealous,
  Never was there woman worse;
You'd have no roses but those grown
  Above some buried corse.

Am I not pinioned firmly?
  Why be angered if the door
Repulses fifty suing maids
  Who vainly there implore?

Let them live on—to envy
  My own empress of the world,
To whom all Stamboul like a dog
  Lies at the slippers curled.

To you my heroes lower
  Those scarred ensigns none have cowed;
To you their turbans are depressed
  That elsewhere march so proud.

To you Bassora offers
  Her respect, and Trebizonde
Her carpets richly wrought, and spice
  And gems, of which you're fond.

To you the Cyprus temples
  Dare not bar or close the doors;
For you the mighty Danube sends
  The choicest of its stores.

Fear you the Grecian maidens,
  Pallid lilies of the isles?
Or the scorching-eyed sand-rover
  From Baalbec's massy piles?

Compared with yours, oh, daughter
 Of King Solomon the grand,
What are round ebon bosoms,
 High brows from Hellas' strand?

You're neither blanched nor blackened,
  For your tint of olive's clear;
Yours are lips of ripest cherry,