extract text from html string with jquery

How about this:

var html_string = "<span class=\"verse\">"
                    + "<strong>1</strong>\u00a0hello world how are you?,"
                    + "<span class=\"trans\" title=\"\u00a0Greek brothers.\">t<\/span> "
                    + "I am fine thank you."
                + "</span>"
                + "<span class=\"verse\">"
                    + "<strong>2</strong>\u00a0this world is very bad."
                + "</span>"
                + "<span class=\"verse\">"
                    + "<strong>3<\/strong>\u00aall me are good,"
                + "</span>";

// Build up the DOM in a hidden element we can parse through
var $html = $('<div>',{html:html_string}).hide().appendTo('body');

// loop through each verse    
$html.find('.verse').each(function(i,e){
    // grab the verse, but first delete any span.trans
    var verse = $(e).find('span.trans').remove().end().text();
    // console.log(verse);
});
// remove the html from the DOM
$html.remove();

You should be able to loop it without adding it to the DOM, but for some reason I can't get it to work. Might be because it's late or my fingers are on strike for the evening. Either way, if someone finds a way to do it without attaching it, please post and I'll up-vote.