Mercedes

By Thomas William Parsons (1819–1892)

The first wife of Alphonso XII. of Spain. She died on June 26, 1878, after a brief wedded life.

SCARCE grown to womanhood, to die a Queen!

Montpensier’s daughter, what a fate was thine!

Youngest and loveliest of that Bourbon line

So long chief actors in the mingled scene

Of state and sway—the scaffold and the axe;

Spiritui tuo sit aeterna Pax!

Thy tragedy shall keep thy cypress green,

And Isabella’s name shall be to Spain

Less dear a memory than the tender tale

Of thy young love and wedlock—and the wail

That closed the marriage paean, and the rain

Of sudden tears, as when an August cloud

Bursts mid the sunshine. Oh, how cold and pale

Alfonso, when he kissed thee in thy shroud!