110 POETICAL LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
that was ever wrought out of steel, three times 
whitened in the red heat of the blinding furnace; for 
it was such beauty as she possessed that first softened 
down the fierce spirit of English chivalry, and tamed 
the savage grandeur of feudal warfare. The remem¬ 
brance of her beauty alone had saved her father’s 
fortress from the burning brand of the besiegers, 
when the castle was beleaguered during the wars 
between the rival houses of York and Lancaster. 
On the battlements the cross-bowmen had perished 
one by one, shot down by the unerring aim of the 
archers who were assembled without the moat, and 
whose arrows went whistling through every opening 
• 
of the embrasures, wherever a defender appeared. 
The gates of the outer barbican were already carried, 
the chains by which the draw-bridge was uplifted had 
been severed by the stout blows of a battle-axe, and 
had fallen down with a thundering and heavy crash 
across the deep waters of the moat, while throughout 
the chambers of the inner keep, echoed at intervals 
the measured sound of the mighty battering-ram, as 
it threatened at every blow to carry from their hinges 
the iron-studded doors which swung between the gray 
old towers; the last defence that stood between the 
