Sir, as one royal personage to another,
let me confess that I am sick for home.
I came to test you with the hardest questions
my ministers could devise in their sessions
of finger tapping, table drumming, placing
their index fingers flat against their noses
for more incisive thought. You answered all,
spelling, besides, each complicated word
in their black dictionaries, and so gain
rights to my bed. Noblesse oblige; this is
proper and as it should be.

                          I regret
Nothing, but did not come for love—rather,
to shame you out of pride. Do you remember
how many trunks of ivory my camels
carried? One hundred elephants gave up
their eyeteeth to accommodate my need
to show you up with riches. I had hoped
to humble you with slabs of beaten gold
and openwork done by my master craftsmen,
stun you with scents of oils and precious spices,
and catch you like a brazen fly, only 
to drown you in the honey of my scorn.
I failed in this, too. Solomon, I now
offer my gifts in all humility,
praising your patience.

                          Still, I must go home.
Your wisdom cloys, or is beginning to;
proverbial pearls lose their luster in time.
I am uncomfortable when your scribes
doodle on their blank tablets, poise to pounce
on any utterance you care to make—
the bones you throw posterity. I long
for nervous jungle drums on these occasions,
am tempted to defy you with a dance
unseemly here. And I dislike the stare
of golden oxen in my bath; my own
taste runs to water lilies whose white faces
move with my motion.

                          Let us be quite frank—
we do not suit each other, though your songs
almost persuaded me. O Solomon,
my love, my tongue of tongueless cherubim,
I shall not sleep again without your songs 
deep in my ears! On long, hot evenings,
I'll teach my slaves the music of those words.
I am not a wise, just queen, not an enlightened monarch—
rather, a noble savage, quick to beat
my sad black dancers, quick to be afraid.
I fear my loneliness; I have seen lions 
observe me in my hammock from the edge
of darkness after sundown. But I am sick
for my own country, where my clapping hands
command an almond tree to rise and bloom
behind my ear, and ebony girls come 
and whisper to me of their love affairs.
Spring is sweeter there.

                          I shall not come again.