Classic Poem

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 seaffold and the axe;
Spiritui tuo sit œterna 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 pæan, 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!