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, delivered 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 arm 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!