The New Murrey and Blue blog

YORK AND LANCASTER

If this fair rose offend thy sight,

Placed in thy bosom bare

‘Twill blush to find itself less white

And turn Lancastrian there

But if thy ruby lip it spy,

As kiss it thou mayst deign

With envy pale ’twill lose its dye

And Yorkish turn again.

It was attributed to a royal genius of the House of York and accompanied a white rose which he presented to his mistress, who was a Lancastrian.

The book where I found it was published in 1822! The editor said that it was modernised so there is an original somewhere. It would be interesting to see when the poem was composed…