PALE pearls Are best for girls, And queenly diamond stones Their charming chaperons Do most befit; But this fierce ruby, heart's blood of the East, What does it want, I ask you, west of Suez? Down the dim centuries of fight and feast It's blazed (no doubt) on many a Rajah-roué's Kingly and costly kit; Balefully still it blinks of hate and harm, An asp upon my Amy's rose-white arm! What tales Of long jezails, And grim zenana-bars, And cruel scimitars Could it portray! Torture, intrigue it knows, and cut-and-thrust Of companies, bow-string and poisoned potion, And elephants soft-padding through the dust, And years and years of killing and commotion. What, Amy, did you say? "Talk about something that I understand"? Why, quite. A Capetown garnet, is it? Oh, all right! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FIRST BREAK by ALEXANDER ANDERSON THE HEATH-COCK by JOANNA BAILLIE THE KINGS OF THE EAST by KATHARINE LEE BATES SABBATH HYMN ON THE MOUNTAINS by JOHN STUART BLACKIE SANDY STAR: 2. LAUGHING IT OUT by WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE EPIGRAM ON BAD ROADS by ROBERT BURNS THE TOMB OF GAUGIN by PIERRE CAMO OBSERVATIONS IN THE ART OF ENGLISH POESY: 3 by THOMAS CAMPION |