Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A JEWELLED SELL, by                    
First Line: Pale pearls / are best for girls
Last Line: A capetown garnet, is it? Oh, all right!
Subject(s): Jewelry & Jewelers; Women; Rings; Bracelets; Necklaces


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!





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