The Favorite Sultana.

("N'ai-je pas pour toi, belle juive.")     [XII., Oct. 27, 1828.]     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.