Читать книгу Poems - Victor Hugo, Clara Inés Bravo Villarreal - Страница 27

     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,

       You are straight as Arab spear.

     Hence, launch no longer lightning

      On these paltry slaves of ours.

     Why should your flow of tears be matched

      By their mean life-blood showers?

     Think only of our banquets

       Brought and served by charming girls,

     For beauties sultans must adorn

       As dagger-hilts the pearls.