Herman Melville

“ What devil has your hearts possessed,
You can't enjoy?--Ah, dear Rovenna,
With talk of donna and duenna,
You came too from that hemisphere,
But freighted with quite other cheer: ⁠155
No pedant, no!" Then, changing free,
Laughed with a light audacity:
"Well, me for one, dameJudah here
Don't much depress: she's not austere--
Nature has lodged her in good zone-- ⁠160
The true wine-zone of Noah: the Cape
Yields no such bounty of the grape. ”

“ There is no tress
Can thrall one like a Jewess's.
A Hebrew husband, Hebrew-wed,
Is wondrous faithful, it is said;
Which needs be true; for, I suppose, ⁠220
As bees are loyal to the rose,
So men to beauty. ”

“ A wafture of suspicion stirred:
He spake: "The Hebrew, it would seem,
You study much; you have averred
More than most Gentiles well may glean
In voyaging mere from scene to scene ⁠270
Of shifting traffic." ”