| |
| IN the old and timeworn casa | |
| With its white adobe walls, | |
| The court with its wild grown flowers, | |
| And the stone-paved Spanish halls, | |
| |
| She lives—the slim, dark woman | 5 |
| With the pale Madonna face, | |
| And the brown hands ever weaving, | |
| Fold on fold of cobweb lace. | |
| |
| From the town of San Francisco, | |
| To the shores of Carmel Bay, | 10 |
| She was known “Donna Maria” | |
| As the “Belle of Monterey.” | |
| |
| The man whose youth had left him, | |
| The boy with fresh, fair face | |
| And the dark browed Hidalgo | 15 |
| Strove to find in her heart his place. | |
| |
| But though her lovers were legion, | |
| There was one apart from the rest, | |
| And of all the gay throng ’round her, | |
| She loved that man the best. | 20 |
| |
| But his home was not in the West-lands | |
| And his heart was with his home, | |
| So Donna Maria in her casa | |
| Lives year after year alone. | |
| |
| And yesterday we found her | 25 |
| With her inborn Spanish grace. | |
| She showed us her flower garden, | |
| And the quaint old foreign place. | |
| |
| She brought out all her treasures, | |
| And from wrappings yellowed by time, | 30 |
| There came that aroma of romance, | |
| Born only by Spain’s sunny clime. | |
| |
| The rebosas, the old mantillas, | |
| Fans, jewels, and rare fine lace, | |
| Told more of the past and its memories, | 35 |
| Than that calm, passionless face. | |
| |
| So to the treasured mementoes, | |
| She clings—the last of her race— | |
| And will die where she passed her girlhood | |
| Of her story leaving no trace. | 40 |
| |
| She waved us a last “Adois” | |
| From the casa’s open door, | |
| Round which the tall, grim cacti | |
| Stood like sentinels of war. | |
| |
| And her words like vespers linger, | 45 |
| With the spell that about her lay | |
| Sweet, courtly Donna Maria | |
| The once “Belle of Monterey.” | |
| |
