In vain now Clara, sembling gladness,
Plies the magic of her wile,
To draw him off from his great sadness,
And cheat him of a loving smile:
The more her sympathy she tenders,
The more he will by art defy
All beauty which but contrast renders
With his own dear lost Marjory.
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.
VI.
Blow soft, ye winds, and tender-hearted
This hermit waft to yonder shore,
From which for sordid gold he parted
Ten weary years and one before.
Ho! there's the pier where last he left her,
That dear, loved one, to weep alone,
And for that love of gold bereft her
Of all the pleasures she could own.
He's now within the ancient borough!
He sought the well-known White Horse Inn,
And there he laid him down in sorrow,
Some strengthening confidence to win;
Then up the street, with none to greet him,
He held his sad and sorrowing way,
When lo! who should be there to meet him
But Friar John?—who slunk away.
Strange thing! but lo! the sacred sheiling
In that old wynd of St. Marie—
The window where with mirthful feeling
He tap't the sign to Marjorie.
He sought the lobby dark and narrow,
Groped gently for the well-known door,
Where he might hear of his winsome marrow,
Who died there many years before.