Yet some their candid belief avow,
That, if Richard lived in England now,
And his lot were only a common one,
He ne'er had meddled with kings or states,
But might have been a bruiser of pates
And champion now of the "heavy weights,"--
A first-rate "Fighting Phenomenon."
A vassal bound in peace and war
To Richard I. was Vidomar,--
A noble as proud and needy
As ever before that monarch bowed,
But not so needy and not so proud
As the monarch himself was greedy.
Vicomte was he of the Limousin,
Where stones were thick and crops were thin,
And profits small and slow to come in.
But slow and sure, the father's plan, did
Not suit the son. Sire lived close-handed;
Became, not rich, but very landed.
The only debt that ever he made
Was Nature's debt, and that he paid
About the time of the Third Crusade,--
A time when the fashion was fully set
By Richard of running in tilts and debt,
When plumes were high and prudence low,
And every knight felt bound to "go
The pace," and just like Richard do,
By running his purse and a Paynim through.
Yet do not suppose that Vidomar
Was ever a knight in the Holy War:
For Richard many a Saracen's head
Had lopped before the old Count was dead;
And Richard was home from Palestine,
Home from the dungeon of Tiernstein,
And many a Christian corpse had made,
Ere the time in which the story is laid.
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