---

   

• Helen knelt at Venus' shrine,
• ( O Troy Town!)
• 10Saying, ‘A little gift is mine,
• A little gift for a heart's desire.
• Hear me speak and make me a sign!
• ( O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• ‘Look, I bring thee a carven cup;
• ( O Troy Town!)
• See it here as I hold it up,—
• Shaped it is to the heart's desire,
• Fit to fill when the gods would sup.
• 20 ( O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• ‘It was moulded like my breast;
• ( O Troy Town!)
• He that sees it may not rest,
• Rest at all for his heart's desire.
• O give ear to my heart's behest!
• 20 ( O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• ‘See my breast, how like it is;
• ( O Troy Town!)
• See it bare for the air to kiss!
• Is the cup to thy heart's desire?
• O for the breast, O make it his!
• ( O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• ‘Yea, for my bosom here I sue;
• 30 ( O Troy Town!)
• Thou must give it where 'tis due,
• Give it there to the heart's desire.
• Whom do I give my bosom to?
• ( O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

• ‘Each twin breast is an apple sweet!
• ( O Troy Town!)
• Once an apple stirred the beat
• Of thy heart with the heart's desire:—
• 40Say, who brought it then to thy feet?
• ( O Troy's down,
• Tall Troy's on fire!)

   

• ‘Oh the waxen knave was plump to-day,
• Sister Helen;
• How like dead folk he has dropped away!’
• ‘Nay now, of the dead what can you say,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What of the dead, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘See, see, the sunken pile of wood,
• Sister Helen,
• 10 Shines through the thinned wax red as blood!’
• ‘Nay now, when looked you yet on blood,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• How pale she is, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Now close your eyes, for they're sick and sore,
• Sister Helen,
• And I'll play without the gallery door.’
• ‘Aye, let me rest,—I'll lie on the floor,
• Little brother.’
• 20 ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What rest to-night, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘Here high up in the balcony,
• Sister Helen,
• The moon flies face to face with me.’
• ‘Aye, look and say whatever you see,
• Little brother.’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What sight to-night, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘Outside it's merry in the wind's wake,
• 30 Sister Helen;
• In the shaken trees the chill stars shake.’
• ‘Hush, heard you a horse-tread as you spake,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What sound to-night, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘I hear a horse-tread, and I see,
• Sister Helen,
• Three horsemen that ride terribly.’
• ‘Little brother, whence come the three,
• 40 Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Whence should they come, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘They come by the hill-verge from Boyne Bar,
• Sister Helen,
• And one draws nigh, but two are afar.’
• ‘Look, look, do you know them who they are,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Who should they be, between Hell and Heaven?)

• 50‘Oh, it's Holm of East Holm rides so fast,
• Sister Helen,
• For I know the white mane on the blast.’
• ‘The hour has come, has come at last,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Her hour at last, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘He has made a sign and called Halloo!
• Sister Helen,
• And he says that he would speak with you.’
• 60‘Oh tell him I fear the frozen dew,
• Little brother.’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Why laughs she thus, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘The wind is loud, but I hear him cry,
• Sister Helen,
• That Holm of Ewern's like to die.’
• ‘And he and thou, and thou and I,
• Little brother.’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• 70 And they and we, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘For three days now he has lain abed,
• Sister Helen,
• And he prays in torment to be dead.’
• ‘The thing may chance, if he have prayed,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• If he have prayed, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘But he has not ceased to cry to-day,
• Sister Helen,
• 80 That you should take your curse away.’
• ‘ My prayer was heard,—he need but pray,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Shall God not hear, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘But he says, till you take back your ban,
• Sister Helen,
• His soul would pass, yet never can.’
• ‘Nay then, shall I slay a living man,
• Little brother?’
• 90 ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• A living soul, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘But he calls for ever on your name,
• Sister Helen,
• And says that he melts before a flame.’
• ‘My heart for his pleasure fared the same,
• Little brother.’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Fire at the heart, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Here's Holm of West Holm riding fast,
• 100 Sister Helen,
• For I know the white plume on the blast.’
• ‘The hour, the sweet hour I forecast,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Is the hour sweet, between Hell and Heaven?)

• ‘He stops to speak, and he stills his horse,
• Sister Helen;
• But his words are drowned in the wind's course.’
• ‘Nay hear, nay hear, you must hear perforce,
• 110 Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• A word ill heard, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Oh he says that Holm of Ewern's cry,
• Sister Helen,
• Is ever to see you ere he die.’
• ‘He sees me in earth, in moon and sky,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Earth, moon and sky, between Hell and Heaven!)

• 120‘He sends a ring and a broken coin,
• Sister Helen,
• And bids you mind the banks of Boyne.’
• ‘What else he broke will he ever join,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Oh, never more, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘He yields you these and craves full fain,
• Sister Helen,
• You pardon him in his mortal pain.’
• 130‘What else he took will he give again,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• No more again, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘He calls your name in an agony,
• Sister Helen,
• That even dead Love must weep to see.’
• ‘Hate, born of Love, is blind as he,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• 140 Love turned to hate, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Oh it's Holm of Holm now that rides fast,
• Sister Helen,
• For I know the white hair on the blast.’
• ‘The short short hour will soon be past,
• Litle brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Will soon be past, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘He looks at me and he tries to speak,
• Sister Helen,
• 150 But oh! his voice is sad and weak!’
• ‘What here should the mighty Baron seek,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Is this the end,, between Hell and Heaven! )
  Note: There is an extra comma in line 154 (received line 182).

• ‘Oh his son still cries, if you forgive,
• Sister Helen,
• The body dies but the soul shall live.’
• ‘Fire shall forgive me as I forgive,
• Little brother!’
• 160 ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• As she forgives, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Oh he prays you, as his heart would rive,
• Sister Helen,
• To save his dear son's soul alive.’
• ‘Nay, flame cannot slay it, it shall thrive,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Alas, alas, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘He cries to you, kneeling in the road,
• 170 Sister Helen,
• To go with him for the love of God!’
• ‘The way is long to his son's abode,
• Little brother.’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• The way is long, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘O Sister Helen, you heard the bell,
• Sister Helen!
• More loud than the vesper-chime it fell.’
• ‘No vesper-chime, but a dying knell,
• 180 Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• His dying knell, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Alas! but I fear the heavy sound,
• Sister Helen;
• Is it in the sky or in the ground?’
• ‘Say, have they turned their horses round,
• Little brother?’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• What would she more, between Hell and Heaven?)

• 190‘They have raised the old man from his knee,
• Sister Helen,
• And they ride in silence hastily.’
• ‘More fast the naked soul doth flee,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• The naked soul, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Oh the wind is sad in the iron chill,
• Sister Helen,
• And weary sad they look by the hill.’
• 200‘But Holm of Ewern's sadder still,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Most sad of all, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘See, see, the wax has dropped from its place,
• Sister Helen,
• And the flames are winning up apace!’
• ‘Yet here they burn but for a space,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• 210 Here for a space, between Hell and Heaven!)

• ‘Ah! what white thing at the door has cross'd,
• Sister Helen?
• Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?’
• ‘A soul that's lost as mine is lost,
• Little brother!’
• ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
• Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!)

   

• Say, is it day, is it dusk in thy bower,
• Thou whom I long for, who longest for me?
• Oh! be it light, be it night, 'tis Love's hour,
• Love's that is fettered as Love's that is free.
• Free Love has leaped to that innermost chamber,
• Oh! the last time, and the hundred before:
• Fettered Love, motionless, can but remember,
• Yet something that sighs from him passes the door.

• What were my prize, could I enter thy bower,
• 10 This day, to-morrow, at eve or at morn?
• Large lovely arms and a neck like a tower,
• Bosom then heaving that now lies forlorn.
• Deep in warm pillows Kindled with love-breath, (the sun's bed kiss is colder!)
• Thy sweetness all near me, so distant to-day;
• My hand round thy neck and thy hand on my shoulder,
• My mouth to thy mouth as the world melts away.

• What is it keeps me afar from thy bower,—
• My spirit, my body, so fain to be there?
• Waters engulfing or fires that devour?—
• 20 Earth heaped against me or death in the air?
  page: 118  
• Nay, but in day-dreams, for terror, for pity,
• The trees wave their heads with an omen to tell;
• Nay, but in night-dreams, throughout the dark city,
• The hours, clashed together, lose count in the bell.

• Shall I not one day remember thy bower,
• One day when all days are one day to me?—
• Thinking, ‘I stirred not, and yet had the power,’—
• Yearning, ‘Ah God, if again it might be!’
• Peace, peace! such a small lamp illumes, on this highway,
• 30 So dimly so few steps in front of my feet,—
• Yet shows me that her way is parted from my way....
• Out of sight, beyond light, at what goal shall we meet?

   

• Lazy laughing languid Jenny,
• Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea,
• Whose head upon my knee to-night
• Rests for a while, as if grown light
• With all our dances and the sound
• To which the wild tunes spun you round:
• Fair Jenny mine, the thoughtless queen
• Of kisses which the blush between
• Could hardly make much daintier ! — Nay, ,—
  Note: Each of the following sets of additions lists different versions of the same added line. The first line listed under each entry is taken from the line group Rossetti has added at the top of the page; subsequent lines are taken from the additions at the bottom.
• 10
  Added Text Whose eyes are as blue skies, [indecipherable—about 4 letters]e whose hair
  
  Whose eyes are as blue skies, whose hair
• Added Text Holds the light globed as does a shell:
  
  Is gathered gold innumerable
  
  countless/clustered gold incomparable
• Added Text Fine flower by summer cherished well
  
  Fresh flower, scarce tinged touched by signs that tell
• Added Text Within her sultriest arbours.—Nay,
  
  Of Love's exuberant hotbed:—Nay,
• Poor flower left torn since yesterday
• Until to-morrow leave you bare;
• Poor handful of bright spring-water
• Flung in the whirlpool's shrieking face! —
• Poor shameful Jenny, full of grace
• Thus with your head upon my knee ; :—
• 20Whose person or whose purse may be
• The lodestar of your reverie?

• This room of yours, my Jenny, looks
• A change from mine so full of books,
  page: 194  
• Whose serried ranks hold fast, forsooth,
• So many captive hours of youth,—
• The hours they thieve from day and night
• To make one's cherished work come right,
• And leave it wrong for all their theft,
• Even as to-night my work was left:
• 30Until I vowed that since my brain
• And eyes of dancing seemed so fain,
• My feet should have some dancing too:—
• And thus it was I met with you.
• Well, I suppose 'twas hard to part,
• For here I am. And now, sweetheart,
• You seem too tired to get to bed.

• It was a careless life I led
• When rooms like this were scarce so strange
• Not long ago. What breeds the change,—
• 40The many aims or the few years?
• Because to-night it all appears
• Something I do not know again.

• The cloud's not danced out of my brain,—
• The cloud that made it turn and swim
• While hour by hour the books grew dim.
• Why, Jenny, as I watch you there,—
• For all your wealth of loosened hair,
• Your silk ungirdled and unlac'd
• And warm sweets open to the waist,
• 50All golden in the lamplight's gleam,—
• You know not what a book you seem,

   

• Lazy laughing languid Jenny,
• Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea,
• Whose head upon my knee to-night
• Rests for a while, as if grown light
• With all our dances and the sound
• To which the wild tunes spun you round:
• Fair Jenny mine, the thoughtless queen
• Of kisses which the blush between
• Could hardly make much daintier ! — Nay, ,—
Added Text
10 Whose eyes are as blue skies, whose hair
Is countless gold incomparable:




Fresh flower, [indecipherable—about 3 letters] scarce touched with signs that tell
Of Love's exuberant hotbed:—Nay,
• Poor flower left torn since yesterday
• Until to-morrow leave you bare;
• Poor handful of bright spring-water
• Flung in the whirlpool's shrieking face!—
• Poor shameful Jenny, full of grace
• Thus with your head upon my knee;—
• 20Whose person or whose purse may be
• The lodestar of your reverie?

• This room of yours, my Jenny, looks
• A change from mine so full of books,
  page: 194  
• Whose serried ranks hold fast, forsooth,
• So many captive hours of youth,—
• The hours they thieve from day and night
• To make one's cherished work come right,
• And leave it wrong for all their theft,
• Even as to-night my work was left:
• 30Until I vowed that since my brain
• And eyes of dancing seemed so fain,
• My feet should have some dancing too:—
• And thus it was I met with you.
• Well, I suppose 'twas hard to part,
• For here I am. And now, sweetheart,
• You seem too tired to get to bed.

• It was a careless life I led
• When rooms like this were scarce so strange
• Not long ago. What breeds the change,—
• 40The many aims or the few years?
• Because to-night it all appears
• Something I do not know again.

• The cloud's not danced out of my brain,—
• The cloud that made it turn and swim
• While hour by hour the books grew dim.
• Why, Jenny, as I watch you there,—
• For all your wealth of loosened hair,
• Your silk ungirdled and unlac'd
• And warm sweets open to the waist,
• 50All golden in the lamplight's gleam,—
• You know not what a book you seem,

   

• Than that whose spring in blessings ran
• Which praised the righteous bounteous husbandman,
• Ere yet, in days of hankering breath,
• The lilies sickened unto death.

• What, Jenny, are your lilies dead?
• Aye, and the snow-white leaves are spread
• Like winter on the garden-bed.
• But you had roses left in May,—
• They were not gone too. Jenny, nay,
• 10But must your roses die, and those
• Their purfelled purfled buds that should unclose?
• Even so; the leaves are curled apart,
• Still red as from the broken heart,
• And here's the naked stem of thorns.

• Nay, nay, mere words. Here nothing warns
• As yet of winter. Sickness here
• Or want alone could waken fear,—
• Nothing but passion wrings a tear.
• Except when there may rise unsought
• 20Haply at times a passing thought
• Of the old days which seem to be
• Much older than any history
• That is written in any book;
• When she would lie in fields and look
• Along the ground through the blown grass,
• And wonder where the city was,
• Far out of sight, whose broil and bale
• They told her then for a child's tale.

• Jenny, you know the city now.
• 30A child can tell the tale there, how
• Some things which are not yet enroll'd
• In market-lists are bought and sold
• Even till the early Sunday light,
• When Saturday night is market-night
• Everywhere, be it dry or wet,
• And market-night in the Haymarket.
• Our learned London children know,
• Poor Jenny, all your mirth and woe;
• Have seen your lifted silken skirt
• 40Advertize dainties through the dirt;
• Have seen your coach-wheels splash rebuke
• On virtue; and have learned your look
• When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare
• Along the streets alone, and there,
• Round the long park, across the bridge,
• The cold lamps at the pavement's edge
• Wind on together and apart,
• A fiery serpent for your heart.

• Let the thoughts pass, an empty cloud!
• 50Suppose I were to think aloud,—
• What if to her all this were said?
• Why, as a volume seldom read
• Being opened halfway shuts again,
• So might the pages of her brain
• Be parted at such words, and thence
• Close back upon the dusty sense.

   

• Than that whose spring in blessings ran
• Which praised the righteous bounteous husbandman,
• Ere yet, in days of hankering breath,
• The lilies sickened unto death.

• What, Jenny, are your lilies dead?
• Aye, and the snow-white leaves are spread
• Like winter on the garden-bed.
• But you had roses left in May,—
• They were not gone too. Jenny, nay,
• 10But must your roses die, and those
• Their purfelled purfled buds that should unclose?
• Even so; the leaves are curled apart,
• Still red as from the broken heart,
• And here's the naked stem of thorns.

• Nay, nay, mere words. Here nothing warns
• As yet of winter. Sickness here
• Or want alone could waken fear,—
• Nothing but passion wrings a tear.
• Except when there may rise unsought
• 20Haply at times a passing thought
• Of the old days which seem to be
• Much older than any history
• That is written in any book;
• When she would lie in fields and look
• Along the ground through the blown grass,
• And wonder where the city was,
• Far out of sight, whose broil and bale
• They told her then for a child's tale.

• Jenny, you know the city now.
• 30A child can tell the tale there, how
• Some things which are not yet enroll'd
• In market-lists are bought and sold
• Even till the early Sunday light,
• When Saturday night is market-night
• Everywhere, be it dry or wet,
• And market-night in the Haymarket.
• Our learned London children know,
• Poor Jenny, all your mirth and woe;
• Have seen your lifted silken skirt
• 40Advertize dainties through the dirt;
• Have seen your coach-wheels splash rebuke
• On virtue; and have learned your look
• When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare
• Along the streets alone, and there,
• Round the long park, across the bridge,
• The cold lamps at the pavement's edge
• Wind on together and apart,
• A fiery serpent for your heart.

• Let the thoughts pass, an empty cloud!
• 50Suppose I were to think aloud,—
• What if to her all this were said?
• Why, as a volume seldom read
• Being opened halfway shuts again,
• So might the pages of her brain
• Be parted at such words, and thence
• Close back upon the dusty sense.

   

• For is there hue or shape defin'd
• In Jenny's desecrated mind,
• Where all contagious currents meet,
• A Lethe of the middle street?
• Nay, it reflects not any face,
• Nor sound is in its sluggish pace,
• But as they coil those eddies clot,
• And night and day remember not.

• Why, Jenny, you're asleep at last!—
• 10Asleep, poor Jenny, hard and fast,—
• So young and soft and tired; so fair,
• With chin thus nestled in your hair,
• Mouth quiet, eyelids almost blue
• As if some sky of dreams shone through!

• Just as another woman sleeps!
• Enough to throw one's thoughts in heaps
• Of doubt and horror,—what to say
• Or think,—this awful secret sway,
• The potter's power over the clay!
• 20Of the same lump (it has been said)
• For honour and dishonour made,
• Two sister vessels. Here is one.

• My cousin Nell is fond of fun,
• And fond of dress, and change, and praise,
• So mere a woman in her ways:
• And if her sweet eyes rich in youth
• Are like her lips that tell the truth,
  page: 200  
• My cousin Nell is fond of love.
• And she's the girl I'm proudest of.
• 30Who does not prize her, guard her well?
• The love of change, in cousin Nell,
• Shall find the best and hold it dear:
• The unconquered mirth turn quieter
• Not through her own, through others' woe:
• The conscious pride of beauty glow
• Beside another's pride in her,
• One little part of all they share.
• For Love himself shall ripen these
• In a kind soil to just increase
• 40Through years of fertilizing peace.

• Of the same lump (as it is said)
• For honour and dishonour made,
• Two sister vessels. Here is one.

• It makes a goblin of the sun.

• So pure, — so fall'n! How dare to think
• Of the first common kindred link?
• Yet, Jenny, till the world shall burn
• It seems that all things take their turn;
• And who shall say but this fair tree
• 50May need, in changes that may be,
• Your children's children's charity?
• Scorned then, no doubt, as you are scorn'd!
• Shall no man hold his pride forewarn'd
• Till in the end, the Day of Days,

   

• At Judgment, one of his own race,
• As frail and lost as you, shall rise,—
• His daughter, with his mother's eyes?

• Fair shines the gilded aureole
• In which our highest painters place
• Some living woman's simple face.
• And the stilled features thus descried
• As Jenny's long throat droops aside,—
• The loving underlip drawn in,
• The shadows where the cheeks are thin,
• 20And pure wide curve from ear to chin,—
• With Raffael's or Da Vinci's hand
• To show them to men's souls, might stand,
• Whole ages long, the whole world through,
• For preachings of what God can do.
• What has man done here? How atone,
• Great God, for this which man has done?
• And for the body and soul which by
  page: 202  
• Man's pitiless doom must now comply
• With lifelong hell, what lullaby
• 30Of sweet forgetful second birth
• Remains? All dark. No sign on earth
• What measure of God's rest endows
• The many mansions of his house.

• If but a woman's heart might see
• Such erring heart unerringly
• For once! But that can never be.

• Like a rose shut in a book
• In which pure women may not look,
• For its base pages claim control
• 40To crush the flower within the soul;
• Where through each dead rose-leaf that clings,
• Pale as transparent psyche-wings,
• To the vile text, are traced such things
• As might make lady's cheek indeed
• More than a living rose to read;
• So nought save foolish foulness may
• Watch with hard eyes the sure decay;
• And so the life-blood of this rose,
• Puddled with shameful knowledge, flows
• 50Through leaves no chaste hand may unclose:
• Yet still it keeps such faded show
• Of when 'twas gathered long ago,
• That the crushed petals' lovely grain,
• The sweetness of the sanguine stain,

   

• Seen of a woman's eyes, must make
• Her pitiful heart, so prone to ache,
• Love roses better for its sake:—
• Only that this can never be:—
• Even so unto her sex is she.

• Yet, Jenny, looking long at you,
• The woman almost fades from view.
• A cypher of man's changeless sum
• Of lust, past, present, and to come,
• 10Is left. A riddle that one shrinks
• To challenge from the scornful sphinx.

• Like a toad within a stone
• Seated while Time crumbles on;
• Which sits there since the earth was curs'd
• For Man's transgression at the first;
• Which, living through all centuries,
• Not once has seen the sun arise;
• Whose life, to its cold circle charmed,
• The earth's whole summers have not warmed;
• 20Which always—whitherso the stone
• Be flung—sits there, deaf, blind, alone;—
• Aye, and shall not be driven out
• Till that which shuts him round about
• Break at the very Master's stroke,
• And the dust thereof vanish as smoke,
• And the seed of Man vanish as dust:—
• Even so within this world is Lust.

• Come, come, what use in thoughts like this?
• Poor little Jenny, good to kiss,—
• 30You'd not believe by what strange roads
• Thought travels, when your beauty goads
• A man to-night to think of toads!
• Jenny, wake up. . . . Why, there's the dawn!

• And there's an early waggon drawn
• To market, and some sheep that jog
• Bleating before a barking dog;
• And the old streets come peering through
• Another night that London knew;
• And all as ghostlike as the lamps.

• 40 So on the wings of day decamps
• My last night's frolic. Glooms begin
• To shiver off as lights creep in
• Past the gauze curtains half drawn-to,
• And the lamp 's doubled shade grows blue,—
• Your lamp, my Jenny, kept alight,
• Like a wise virgin's, all one night!
• And in the alcove coolly spread
• Glimmers with dawn your empty bed;
• And yonder your fair face I see
• 50Reflected lying on my knee,
• Where teems with first foreshadowings
• Your pier-glass scrawled with diamond rings.

• And now without, as if some word
  page: 205  
• Had called upon them which that they heard,
• The London sparrows far and nigh
• Clamour together suddenly;
• And Jenny's cage-bird grown awake
• Here in their song his part must take,
• Because here too the day doth break.

• 60 And somehow in myself the dawn
• Among stirred clouds and veils withdrawn
• Strikes greyly on her. Let her sleep.
• But will it wake her if I heap
• These cushions thus beneath her head
• Where my knee was? No,—there's your bed,
• My Jenny, while you dream. And there
• I lay among your golden hair
• Perhaps the subject of your dreams,
• These golden coins.

• For still one deems
• That Jenny's flattering sleep confers
• New magic on the magic purse,—
• Grim web, how clogged with shrivelled flies!
• Between the threads fine fumes arise
• And shape their pictures in the brain.
• There roll no streets in glare and rain,
• Nor flagrant man-swine whets his tusk;
• But delicately sighs in musk
• The homage of the dim boudoir;
• 80Or like a palpitating star
• Thrilled into song, the opera-night
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• Breathes faint in the quick pulse of light;
• Or at the carriage-window shine
• Rich wares for choice; or, free to dine,
• Whirls through its hour of health (divine
• For her) the concourse of the Park.
• And though in the discounted dark
• Her functions there and here are one,
• Beneath the lamps and in the sun
• 90There reigns at least the acknowledged belle
• Apparelled beyond parallel.
• Ah Jenny, yes, we know your dreams.

• For even the Paphian Venus seems
• A goddess o'er the realms of love,
• When silver-shrined in shadowy grove:
• Aye, or let offerings nicely placed
• But hide Priapus to the waist,
• And whoso looks on him shall see
• An eligible deity.

• 100 Why, Jenny, waking here alone
• May help you to remember one ! ,
• Added TextThough all the memory's long outworn
• Added TextOf many a double-pillowed morn.
• I think I see you when you wake,
• And rub your eyes for me, and shake
• My gold, in rising, from your hair,
• A Danaë for a moment there.

• Jenny, my love rang true! for still
• Love at first sight is vague, until
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• 110That tinkling makes him audible.

• And must I mock you to the last,
• Ashamed of my own shame,—aghast
• Because some thoughts not born amiss
• Rose at a poor fair face like this?
• Well, of such thoughts so much I know:
• In my life, as in hers, they show,
• By a far gleam which I may near,
• A dark path I can strive to clear.

• Only one kiss. Goodbye, my dear.

   

• This is her picture as she was:
• It seems a thing to wonder on,
• As though mine image in the glass
• Should tarry when myself am gone.
• I gaze until she seems to stir,—
• Until mine eyes almost aver
• That now, even now, the sweet lips part
• To breathe the words of the sweet heart:—
• And yet the earth is over her.

• 10In painting her I shrined her face
• Mid mystic trees, where light falls in
• Hardly at all; a covert place
• Where you might think to find a din
• Of doubtful talk, and a live flame
• Wandering, and many a shape whose name
• Not itself knoweth, and old dew,
• And your own footsteps meeting you,
• And all things going as they came.