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"If it be needful," he replied, "to give the pledge you crave To tell thee, Adelifa, that thou art my soul's delight And lay my inmost bosom bare before thy anxious sight, The bosom on whose mirror shines thy face in lines of light, Here let me ope the secret cell that thou thyself may see, The altar and the blazing lamp that always burn for thee.
And when they bring the boss of gold He heaves a thousand sighs O'er brave Adonis and his doom, Who by the wild boar dies. "O Adelifa, soul of mine, Rejoice, and murmur not, Up to the end be merry, When worms shall be thy lot. My day of life must needs be short, Thy firmness must be long; Although thou art a woman, Unlike thy sex, be strong.
No more those pearly tears of thine fall useless in the dust No more the jealous fear distract thy bosom with mistrust. Believe me by the oath I swear my heart I here resign, And all I have of love and care are, Adelifa, thine. Believe that Abenamar would his own life betray If he had courage thus to throw life's choicest gem away."
Its plumes unite the saffron's tint With heron's crest of snow, And one long spray of fluttering gray. Then give it e'er I go, And I'll put on the hood of blue That Celin's daughter fair, My Adelifa, best-beloved, Once gave to me to wear. And the square boss of metal bring, That circling boughs entwine With laurels, in whose leaves of gold The clustered emeralds shine.
He spurred his barb and rode away, Scattering the dust behind, And cursed the star that made his heart Inconstant as the wind. Fair Adelifa tore her hair, Her cheeks were furrowed o'er with care, When brave Azarco she descried Ascending the tall galley's side.
An orb in her left hand she bears, For all the world her power must feel; There Fortune prostrate lies; the dame Halts with her foot the whirling wheel. But Tarfe's shield is blank and bare, Lest Adelifa should be moved With jealous rage, to learn that he Her Moorish rival, Celia, loved.
Then Adelifa smiled on him and at the words he said, Upon his heaving bosom her blushing cheek she laid. And from that hour each jealous thought far from her mind she thrust And confidence returned again in place of dark distrust. The Moors of haughty Gelves have changed their gay attire.
I strangle, in the sudden thrall Of this sharp pang of agony, Oh, hold me, Tarfe, lest I fall." Thus Adelifa weeping cried At thought of Abenamar's quest: In Moorish Tarfe's arms she fell, And panting lay upon his breast.
And once, when placid evening was mellowing into night, The lovely Adelifa sat with her darling knight; And then the pent-up feeling from out her spirit's deeps Rose with a storm of heavy sighs and trembled on her lips: "My valiant knight, who art, indeed, the whole wide world to me, Clear mirror of victorious arms and rose of chivalry, Thou terror of thy valorous foe, to whom all champions yield, The rampart and the castle of fair Granada's field, In thee the armies of the land their bright example see, And all their hopes of victory are founded upon thee; And I, poor loving woman, have hope in thee no less, For thou to me art life itself, a life of happiness.
Fair Adelifa sees in wrath, kindled by jealous flames, Her Abenamar gazed upon by the kind Moorish dames. And if they chance to speak to him, or take him by the hand, She swoons to see her own beloved with other ladies stand.
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