Count Pedro’s banner came. Alphonso shriek’d
For joy, and smote his steed and gallop’d on.
Fronting the gate the standard-bearer holds
His precious charge. Behind the men divide
In order’d files; green boyhood presses there,
And waning eld, pleading a youthful soul,
Intreats admission. All is ardour here,
Hope and brave purposes and minds resolved.
Nor where the weaker sex is left apart
Doth aught of fear find utterance, though perchance