_ADELGITHA_
The ordeal's fatal trumpet sounded,
And sad pale Adelgitha came,
When forth a valiant champion bounded,
And slew the slanderer of her fame.
She wept, deliver'd from her danger;
But when he knelt to claim her glove--
'Seek not,' she cried, 'oh! gallant stranger,
For hapless Adelgitha's love.
'For he is in a foreign far land
Whose arms should now have set me free;
And I must wear the willow garland
For him that's dead or false to me.'
'Nay! say not that his faith is tainted!'
He raised his vizor--at the sight
She fell into his arms and fainted;
It was indeed her own true knight!
_T. Campbell_