'You have come from the bath, all in milk-white array, To show you have washed worldly feelings away, And, pure as your vestments from secular stain, Renounce sordid passions and seekings for gain. 'This scarf of deep red o'er your vestments I throw, In token, that down them your life-blood shall flow, Ere Chivalry's honour, or Christendom's faith, Shall meet, through your failure, or peril or scaith. 'These slippers of silk, of the colour of earth, Are in sign of remembrance of whence you had birth; That from earth you have sprung, and to earth you return, But stand for the faith, life immortal to earn. 'This blow of the sword on your shoulder-blades true Is the mandate of homage, where homage is due, And the sign that your swords from the scabbard shall fly When "St George and the Right" is the rallying cry. 'This belt of white silk, which no speck has defaced, Is the sign of a bosom with purity graced, And binds you to prove, whatsoever betides, Of damsels distressed the friends, champions, and guides. 'These spurs of pure gold are the symbols which say, As your steeds obey them, you the Church shall obey, And speed at her bidding, through country and town, To strike, with your falchions, her enemies down.' II Now fancy these Knights, when the speech they have heard, As they stand, scarfed, shoed, shoulder-dubbed, belted and spurred, With the cross-handled sword duly sheathed on the thigh, Thus simply and candidly making reply: 'By your Majesty's grace we have risen up Knights, But we feel little relish for frays and for fights: There are heroes enough, full of spirit and fire, Always ready to shoot and be shot at for hire. 'True, with bulls and with bears we have battled our cause; And the bulls have no horns, and the bears have no paws; And the mightiest blow which we ever have struck Has achieved but the glory of laming a duck.{1} 1 In Stock Exchange slang, Bulls are speculators for a rise, Bears for a fall. A lame duck is a man who cannot pay his dififerences, and is said to waddle off. The patriotism of the money-market is well touched by Ponsard, in his comedy _La Bourse_: Acte iv. Scène 3-- 'With two nations in arms, friends impartial to both, To raise each a loan we shall be nothing loth; We will lend them the pay, to fit men for the fray; But shall keep ourselves carefully out of the way. 'We have small taste for championing maids in distress: For State we care little: for Church we care less: To Premium and Bonus our homage we plight: "Percentage!" we cry: and "A fig for the right!"