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LADY ROHESIA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The lady rohesia lay on her deathbed!
Last Line: Left to be a maid of honour to 'good queen bess.'
Alternate Author Name(s): Ingoldsby, Thomas


Fair Lady Rohesia sat in bower,
Amid her maidens, weaving the flower;
But she heeded not the wild harp's tune,
Nor song of the troubadour to the moon:
Her eye was fixed on the blazoned pane,
Where the sunbeam fell on her father's wane.
Hush! hush! she cried, "ye noisy train!
And I'll tell you the tale of the pictured pane;
For never did knight in Palestine,
Nor crusading lord from the holy shrine,
Bring home so true, so fair a prize,
As my ancestor won from Paradise.
It was in the glorious Edward's reign,
When our fathers fought in Palestine,
That the lord of Sedbergh woo'd and won
The daughter of a Syrian sun.
She was the loveliest creature e'er
Beneath a Moslem roof, I swear!
She was called the Rose of Sharon's vale,
And the nightingale of the Persian tale.
But hark! the tramp of the prancing steed!
And the wide hall rings with the warrior's tread!
And see! my sire and my brethren stand
By the side of their own dear lady's hand.
Up, up, ye maids, to the turret's height!
And wave your hands in the morning light;
For the lord of Sedbergh comes from the wars,
With his gallant sons, and his glancing spears!"
She ceased, and the maids their gladness showed,
As downward they waved their kerchiefs broad;
For high on his saddle-bow was laid
The Syrian lady's silken shade!
But Lady Rohesia marked it not;
For a phantom of ill on her mind had wrought;
And never again did she know the mirth
Of that happy day, and that welcome to earth.
But still, when the sunbeam's crimson dye
Gleams on the pane of her ancestry,
She muses long on the Syrian maid,
And the princely lord of the red-cross blade.






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