For these no clashing falchions bright,
No stirring battle-cry;
The bloodless stabber calls by night,—­
Each answers, “Here am I!”

For those the sculptor’s laurelled bust,
The builder’s marble piles,
The anthems pealing o’er their dust
Through long cathedral aisles.

For these the blossom-sprinkled turf
That floods the lonely graves,
When Spring rolls in her sea-green surf
In flowery-foaming waves.

Two paths lead upward from below,
And angels wait above,
Who count each burning life-drop’s flow,
Each falling tear of Love.

Though from the Hero’s bleeding breast
Her pulses Freedom drew,
Though the white lilies in her crest
Sprang from that scarlet dew,—­

While Valor’s haughty champions wait
Till all their scars are shown,
Love walks unchallenged through the gate,
To sit beside the Throne!

CHAPTER X

[The schoolmistress came down with a rose in her hair,—­a fresh June rose.  She has been walking early; she has brought back two others,—­one on each cheek.

I told her so, in some such pretty phrase as I could muster for the occasion.  Those two blush-roses I just spoke of turned into a couple of damasks.  I suppose all this went through my mind, for this was what I went on to say:-]

I love the damask rose best of all.  The flowers our mothers and sisters used to love and cherish, those which grow beneath our eaves and by our doorstep, are the ones we always love best.  If the Houyhnhnms should ever catch me, and, finding me particularly vicious and unmanageable, send a man-tamer to Rareyfy me, I’ll tell you what drugs he would have to take and how he would have to use them.  Imagine yourself reading a number of the Houyhnhnm Gazette, giving an account of such an experiment.

“Man-taming extraordinary.

“The soft-hoofed semi-quadruped recently captured was subjected to the art of our distinguished man-tamer in presence of a numerous assembly.  The animal was led in by two stout ponies, closely confined by straps to prevent his sudden and dangerous tricks of shoulder-hitting and foot-striking.  His countenance expressed the utmost degree of ferocity and cunning.

“The operator took a handful of budding lilac-leaves, and crushing them slightly between his hoofs, so as to bring out their peculiar fragrance, fastened them to the end of a long pole and held them towards the creature.  Its expression changed in an instant,—­it drew in their fragrance eagerly, and attempted to seize them with its soft split hoofs.  Having thus quieted his suspicious subject, the operator proceeded to tie a blue hyacinth to the end of the pole and held it out towards the wild animal.  The effect was magical.  Its eyes filled as if with raindrops, and its lips trembled as it pressed them to the flower.  After this it was perfectly quiet, and brought a measure of corn to the man-tamer, without showing the least disposition to strike with the feet or hit from the shoulder.”