With a moody air, from morn till noon, King Ferdinand paces the royal saloon; From morn till eve He does nothing but grieve; Sighings and sobbings his midriff heave, And he wipes his eyes with his ermined sleeve, And he presses his feverish hand to his brow, And he frowns, and he looks I can't tell you how; And the Spanish Grandees In their degrees, Are whispering about in twos and in threes, And there is not a man of them seems at his ease, But they gaze on the monarch, as watching what he does, With their very long whiskers, and longer Toledos. Don Gaspar, Don Gusman, Don Juan, Don Diego, Don Gomez, Don Pedro, Don Blas, Don Rodrigo, Don Jerome, Don Giacomo join Don Alphonso In making inquiries Of grave Don Ramirez, The Chamberlain, what it is makes him take on so; A Monarch so great that the soundest opinions Maintain the sun can't set throughout his dominions; But grave Don Ramirez In guessing no nigher is Than the other grave Dons who propound these inquiries; When, pausing at length, as beginning to tire, his Majesty beckons, with stately civility, To Señor Don Lewis Condé d'Aranjuez, Who in birth, wealth, and consequence second to few is, And Señor Don Manuel, Count de Pacheco, A lineal descendant from King Pharaoh Neco, Both Knights of the Golden Fleece, highborn Hidalgos, With whom e'en the King himself quite as a "pal" goes. "Don Lewis," says he, "Just listen to me; And you, Count Pacheco,--I think that we three On matters of state, for the most part agree,-- Now you both of you know That some six years ago, Being then, for a King, no indifferent Beau, At the altar I took, like my forbears of old, The Peninsula's paragon, Fair Blanche of Aragon, For better, for worse, and to have and to hold-- And you're fully aware, When the matter took air, How they shouted, and fired the great guns in the Square, Cried '_Viva!_' and rung all the bells in the steeple, And all that sort of thing The mob do when a King Brings a Queen-Consort home for the good of his people. "Well!--six years and a day Have flitted away Since that blessed event, yet I'm sorry to say-- In fact it's the principal cause of my pain-- I don't see any signs of an Infant of Spain!-- Now I want to ask you, Cavaliers true, And Counsellors sage--what the deuce shall I do?-- The State--don't you see?--hey?--an heir to the throne-- Every monarch--you know--should have one of his own-- Disputed succession--hey?--terrible Go!-- Hum!--hey?--Old fellows--you see!--don't you know?"--