’Twere wrong to infer from what you’re read
  That Richard awoke with an aching head;
       For nerves like his resisted
  With wonderful ease what we might deem
  Enough to stagger a Polypheme,
  And his spirits would never more than seem
       A trifle too much “assisted.”

  And yet in the morn no fumes were there,
  And his eyes were bright,—­almost as a pair
       Of eyes that you and I know;
  For his head, the best authorities write,
  (See the Story of Tuck,) was always right
  And sound as ever after a night
       Of "Pellite curas vino!"

  As soon as the light broke into his tent,
  Without delay for a herald he sent,
       And bade him don his tabard,
  And away to the Count to say, “By law
  That gold was the king’s:  unless he saw
  The same ere noon, his sword he would draw
       And throw away the scabbard.”

  An hour, for his morning exercise,
  He swayed that sword of wondrous size,—­
       ’Twas called his great “persuader”;
  Then a mace of steel he smote in two,—­
  A feat which the king would often do,
  Since Saladin wondered at that coup
       When he met our stout crusader.

  A trifle for him:  he “trained to light,”—­
  Grown lazy now:  but his appetite,
       On the whole, was satisfactory,—­
  As the vanishing viands, warm and cold,
  Most amply proved, ere, minus the gold,
  The herald returned and trembling told
       How the Count had proved refractory: 

  Had owned it true that his serfs had found
  A treasure buried somewhere in the ground,—­
       Perhaps not strictly a nugget: 
  Though none but Norman lawyers chose
  To count it tort, if the finders “froze”
  To treasure-trove,—­especially those
       Who held the land where they dug it,—­

  For quits he’d give up half,—­down,—­cash;
  And that, for one who had gone to smash,
       Was a liberal restitution: 
  His neighbor Shent-per-Shent did sue
  On a better claim, and put it through,—­
  Recovered his suit, but not a sou
       At the tail of an execution.

  Coeur gazed around with the ominous glare
  Of the lion deprived of the lion’s share,—­
       A look there was no mistaking,—­
  A look which the courtiers never saw
  Without a sudden desire to draw
  Away from the sweep of the lion’s paw
       Before their bones were aching.

  He caught the herald,—­’twas by the slack
  Of garments below and behind his back,—­
       Then twirled him round for a minute;
  And when at last he let him free,
  He shied him at a neighboring tree,
  A distance of thirty yards and three,
       And lodged him handsomely in it: 

  Then seized his ponderous battle-axe,
  And bade his followers mount their hacks,
       With a look on his countenance so stern,
  So little of fun, so full of fight,
  That, when he came in the Count’s full sight,
  In something of haste and more of fright,
       The Count rode out of the postern;