There was a rich old Spanish señor,
Who bore dark Willie's Spanish name,
And came to feel the kindly tenor
Of plighted friendship's sacred claim:
He gave his right hand to dark Willie,
With shares of a great companie,
Which sent forth goods far o'er the billow,
In ships that sailed on every sea.
Don Pedro had an only daughter,
The Donna Clara, passing fair,
Who, when her sire took his departure,
Would be her father's only heir:
Her eyes, so like two sterns of even,
Shining the murky clouds among,
And black her ringlets as the raven,
That o'er her marble shoulders hung.
Oh Willie! Willie! have thou care, man!
And give unto thine heart a stay,
For there are witcheries working there, man,
May steal that heart of thine away.
No need! to him blue eyes are glowing,
To him most beautiful of all,
No need! for flaxen hair is flowing
To keep his loving heart in thrall.
III.
A year had passed, and he had written
Of loving letters more than one,
The while gold pieces still remitting
All to holy Blackfriar John;
Yet still no answer had he gotten;
And as the days still passed away,
He fell to musing, and deep thought on
What had caused the strange delay.
What now to him those golden pieces
That he so fastly now could earn?
Ah, love like his gives no releases,
However Clara's eyes might yearn;
He wandered hither, wandered thither,
By sad forebodings nightly tossed;
He wandered now, he wandered ever,
In mournful musing sadly lost.
But time would tell: there came a letter
That filled his soul with dire dismay,
And told him his dark fears' abettor,
His Marjory's health had flown away:
Even as the clay her cheek was paling,
Her azure eyes were waxing dim,
Her hair unkemp't, and loose, and trailing,
And all for hopeless love of him.
Sad harbinger of things to harrow,
Another came, ah! soon a day,
To tell him his dear winsome marrow
From this sad world had passed away.
No more for him those eyes so merry,
That were to him so sweet to see!
No more those lips red as the cherry,
That were to him so sweet to pree!
IV.
Alas! there are of things—we see them
Without the aid of wizard's spell;
But there are other things—we dree them,
No art of wizard can foretell:
Strange thing the heart where love has power,
So tossed with joy or racked with pain!
Dark Willie from that fatal hour
Seemed fated ne'er to smile again.