"heartfully."
Then Saladin, "Take here my signet-seal;
My admiral will loose his swiftest sail
Upon its sight; and cleave the seas, and go
And clip thy dame, and say the Trader sends
A gift, remindful of her courtesies."
Passed were the year, and month, and day; and passed
Out of all hearts but one Sir Torel's name,
Long given for dead by ransomed Pavians:
For Pavia, thoughtless of her Eastern graves,
A lovely widow, much too gay for grief,
Made peals from half a hundred campaniles
To ring a wedding in. The seven bells
Of Santo Pietro, from the nones to noon,
Boomed with bronze throats the happy tidings out;
Till the great tenor, overswelled with sound,
Cracked itself dumb. Thereat the sacristan,
Leading his swinked ringers down the stairs,
Came blinking into sunlight--all his keys
Jingling their little peal about his belt--
Whom, as he tarried, locking up the porch,
A foreign signor, browned with southern suns,
Turbaned and slippered, as the Muslims use,
Plucked by the cope. "Friend," quoth he--'twas a tongue
Italian true, but in a Muslim mouth--
"Why are your belfries busy--is it peace
Or victory, that so ye din the ears
Of Pavian lieges?" "Truly, no liege thou!"
Grunted the sacristan, "who knowest not
That Dame Adalieta weds to-night
Her fore-betrothed,--Sir Torel's widow she,
That died i' the chain?" "To-night!" the stranger said
"Ay, sir, to-night!--why not to-night?--to-night!
And you shall see a goodly Christian feast
If so you pass their gates at even-song,
For all are asked."
No more the questioner,
But folded o'er his face the Eastern hood,
Lest idle eyes should mark how idle words
Had struck him home. "So quite forgot!--so soon!--
And this the square wherein I gave the joust,
And that the loggia, where I fed the poor;
And yon my palace, where--oh, fair! oh, false!--
They robe her for a bridal. Can it be?
Clean out of heart, with twice six flying moons,
The heart that beat on mine as it would break,
That faltered forty oaths. Forced! forced!--not false--
Well! I will sit, wife, at thy wedding-feast,
And let mine eyes give my fond faith the lie."
So in the stream of gallant guests that flowed
Feastward at eve, went Torel; passed with them
The outer gates, crossed the grea