94 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
Oh, Mary, thanks! her own true knight 
Did from his foam-flecked steed alight. 
Though loss of blood had left him pale, 
He kissed the Daisy of the Dale. 
Her beauty on another occasion 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, 
and when her lover was compelled to mingle 
amongst the assailants. 
On the battlements the cross-bowmen had pe¬ 
rished 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 de¬ 
fender 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 grey old 
towers ; the last defence that stood between the 
besiegers and the castle. But if every blow which 
