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• Lazy, laughing, languid Jenny,
• Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea;
• Chooser of the oft-chosen part,
• With the old step by the old art
• Treading in the trodden way;
• Blossom of the eternal May
• Plucked and fouled and trampled on,
• Stemless, scentless, strengthless, gone;—
• With thy head thrown on my knee
• 10Sleepily seated under me,
• Of whose purse think'st thou, ma vie?

• Or is thy unquiet thought, perchance,
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• Dancing even as thy limbs can dance
• When the hot arm makes the waist hot
• And the shaken breath fails and is not,—
• When the desire is overmuch,
• And the hands meddle as the lips touch,—
• When the boddice, being loosened therewith,
• Tells the beautiful secret underneath:—
• 20When thy worm, that dieth not slumbereth.

• Or haply, were the truth confest,
• Joy'st thou a Thou'rt thankful for a little while to rest?—
• From the crush to rest within,
• And from the sickness, and the din
• Of woman's envious mocking, which
• Mocks thee because your gown is rich;
• And from the wise unchildish elf,
• Of schoolmate lesser than himself
• Asking, the while thou glid'st apart,
• 30Whether he knows what thing thou art,
• And then in whispers wickedly
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• Teaching him lust and vice by thee;
• But most from the beastliness of man,
• Who spares not to end what he began,
• Whose acts are foul and his speech hard,
• Who having used thee, afterward
• Thrusts thee aside, as when I dine
• I serve the platter and the wine:
• Thou being all men's, yet no man thine.

• 40Or else it may be that thou hast
• A thought in thee of what is past,
• Of the old time which seems to thee
• Much older than any history
• That is written in any book;
• When thou would'st lie in fields, and look
• Along the ground through the thick grass,
• Wondering where the city was
• Of whose loud gaudy broil and bale
• They told thee then for a child's tale.
• 50I think it may be that the press
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• Of the exceeding silentness
• Weigheth on thee, letting thee hear
• Thy mother's voice, that brings strange fear,
• Talk to thee as it used to talk:
• I think that on the lighted walk
• Even, and through folly's bauble-chimes,
• That voice findeth thee many times.
• . . . .Nay, wherefor should such things be said?
• Even as this volume, seldom read,
• Long in dust hiddenly lain,
• 60Opens half, and shuts again:
• So the pages of thy brain
• Part themselves at my words, but and thence
• Close back upon the dusty sense.
• Rocked in their wretched impotence.

• Jenny mine, how dar'st thou be
• In the nineteenth century?—
• Now when the naked Human Mind
• Laughs backward at the years behind,
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• And though the goal seem to be won
• Still girds his loins that he may run;
• 70When the rind peels from the fruit beneath;
• When the sword wear away the sheath;
• When the Temple-veil is rent in twain;
• When through the husk pierces the grain;—
• Through sense and flesh still struggling out,
• Till wrong shall cease, and pain, and doubt,
• And perfect Man be mind throughout.
• In this great day how darest thou stay,
• Thou whom the daylight drives away?—
• Thou stumbling-stone of argument!
• 80Thou has by the mighty force unbent,—
• Strongest although most ancient!

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• Like a toad within a stone
• Seated while time crumbleth on;
• Which hath sat there since earth was curst
• When man's seed sinned at the first;
• Which, hath living through the centuries,
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• And Hath never once seen the sun to arise;
• Whose life, thus shut up and becalmed,
• Hundreds of The earth's whole summers have not warmed;
• 90And which still,—whitherso the stone
• Be cast— it's is there, deaf, blind, alone;—
• Yea Ah! and shall not be driven out
• Till the flint that wrappeth him about
• Be by strong hands smitten and broke,
• And the dust thereof vanish as smoke
• When the flame of the spent lamp doth fail:—
• So art thou in this world, ma belle.
• Thou call'st on Sense,—that's past and o'er,
• Surely, and shall not hold us more;
• 100Yet to thy cell, in earth and air
• Thou find'st an answer everywhere,
• And stickest even to me, thou bur,
• Who'd write myself philosopher!
• How is't that in loftiest mood,
• If but thine hand on mine intrude,
• My being yearns to drink at thine,
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Note: The verso of this leaf contains the first three stanzas of “A Prayer”
• Golden goblet of poison-wine,
• Trouble of mine, peril of mine?

• Peril of mine, trouble of mine,
• 110Thine arms are bare and thy shoulders shine,
• And through the kerchief and through the vest
• Strikes the white of each breathing breast,
• And the down is warm on thy velvet cheek,
• And the thigh from thy rich side slopes oblique,
• And thy lips are full, and thy brows are fair,
• And the gold makes a daylight in thine hair,
• And under the lids thine eyes' wild glee
• Looketh kindly and laughs to me,
• And the air swoons around and over thee.
• 120Oh! from the dark into the dim
• Man gropes, but Matter clings to him
• And leaves him not, early or late:
• Even though he climb beyond the gate
• Where, powerless till the years go by,
• The things to come sit in the sky,—
• Or let his thought drop, like a stone,
• To the old shadow-land unknown,
• Deep unnumbered fathoms down.

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