“Xariffe, her mother called her, a child of beauty rare,
With soft gazelle-like eyes, and curls of dark and shining hair,
A fairy form of perfect grace, and such artless winning ways
That none who saw her, e’er could fail her loveliness to praise.
“She sported mid the orange-groves in gleeful, careless play,
And her mother, as she gazed on her, in agony would pray,
‘My Father, God! be merciful! my cherished darling save
From the curse whose sum of bitterness is to be a female slave.’”
“God heard her prayer, but often he in wisdom doth withhold
The boon we crave, that we may be pure and refined like gold;