CVI 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