Rosalyn stood in the castle tower
And gazed out over the plain,
It wasn’t exactly a sumptuous bower
For the drapes were old, and stained,
The furniture had seen better times
In the days of the knights of old,
But the cracked and broken window panes
Had made the bower cold.

She’d shivered as she had got undressed
And donned a filmy gown,
She pined for the sight she hoped to see
As she stood there, looking down,
Three knights stood guard at the outer moat
Their armour was dull and black,
They couldn’t be seen on a moonless night
But were there to ward off attack.

Attack from the southern Baron’s men,
Attack from the western marsh,
They came to rescue fair Rosalyn
For her sentence had been harsh,
Confined for life in that wintry tower
For her love for the Duke of Spur,
Who’d not been seen since the winter green,
Nor asked what became of her.

The rain came down in a sudden squall
He shivered, and scratched his head,
What could he do with the Duke of Spur
If the man had turned up dead?
He pushed his seat away from the desk
And he rose, and stretched, and yawned,
The cursor blinked on the final line
As the moon beamed in through the storm.

How could he save fair Rosalyn,
That was the question here,
He opened the door of the old bar fridge
And knocked the head off a beer,
He sat again at the keyboard then
And stared and stared at the screen,
He didn’t know where to go from there
But found himself in a dream.

He woke in the damp and windswept tower
Where Rosalyn lay asleep,
He thought that he must be crazy, that
His mind made a giant leap,
He saw the screen in the corner where
He sat, as if in a trance,
But here on the other side of the screen
He was caught, by some mischance.

Rosalyn woke from her slumber then
And she held her arms out wide,
‘I wondered when you would join me in
This tale from the other side.
I’ve seen you sitting and watching me,
You watched as I got undressed,
And I know it’s only a story but
In truth, I wasn’t impressed.’

‘I must be asleep and dreaming,’
He replied, ‘but you can’t be real,
I haven’t finished the story yet
But in here I can see and feel,
And there I am on the other side,
I’m sat in front of the screen.’
‘If you don’t shut up and make love to me,’
She said, ‘then I’m going to scream!’

He spent an hour in a wilful daze,
She held him close in her arms,
He kissed her eyes and her silken thighs
Revealed much more of her charms,
And when they were finally done, she said
‘Will you rescue me, or not?’
He lay as dead as he scratched his head,
‘I think I’ve lost the plot!’

He woke as the sun came slowly up
Stiff and cold in his room,
The cursor was dim and blinking as
The only light in the gloom,
He typed that a coil of rope was hid
On the other side of a drape,
Thinking that she could use it then
To make a swift escape.

She saw the rope and she tied it firm
To the leg of the solid bed,
The thought he was going to rescue her
Was the only thought in his head,
She dropped the rope so the Duke of Spur
Could climb and clamber in,
But when he climbed to the window ledge
The Duke of Spur was him!

David Lewis Paget