| James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902. | | | | June 26 | | 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. |
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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; | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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! | | | |
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