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.

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.