They tell me that the fisher-girls
Who steer their course o'er Susu's brine,
Dive 'neath the waves and bring up pearls:—
Oh! that five hundred pearls were mine!

Forlorn upon our marriage-bed,
My wife, my darling sweet and true,
Must lay her solitary head
Since the sad hour I bade adieu,

No more, methinks, when shines the dawn,
She combs her dark dishevell'd hair:
She counts the months since I am gone,
She counts the days with many a tear.

If but a string of pearls were mine,
I'd please her with them, and I'd say,
“With flags and orange-blossoms twine
Them in a wreath on summer's day.”