V.
Now Time's big silent, solemn billow
Rolls quietly on from year to year:
Don Pedro lies on his green pillow,
With love-lorn Clara sleeping near.
But, ere he died, he did declare it
His pleasure when his days were told,
And Clara dead, with none to share it,
Don William should heir all his gold.
Gift vain, oh vain! would wealth restore him
His long-lost Marjory to his arms?
Nay, would it wake and bring before him
One only of her envied charms?
No, it might cause another courtship,
A love he could not now control:
Great Mammon lured him to his worship,
And lorded in his inmost soul.
What though ten years away had stolen?
'Twas not to him all weary time,
Who every day was pleased to roll in
The tempting Mammon's golden shrine.
But when he laid him on his pillow,
His fancy sought the farthest east,
And conjured up some lonely willow
That waved o'er her he loved the best.
Change still—a passion changed to pity!
No other solace would he have—
A wish to see his native city,
And sit and weep o'er Marjory's grave.
To see that house, yea, buy the sheiling
In that old wynd of St. Marie,
A hermit there to live and dwell in,
Then sleep beside his Marjorie.