Jenny by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1870 read by Charlotte Le Blond

Lazy, laughing, languid Jenny, fond of a kiss and fond of a dinner, whose head upon my knee tonight rests for a while as if grown light, with all our dances and the sound to which the wild June's spun your hair. Fair Jenny mine, the thoughtless queen of kisses which the blush between could hardly make much daintier, whose eyes are as blue skies, whose hair is a countless gold incomparable, fresh flower scarce touched with signs that tell of love's exuberant hot bed. Nay, poor flower left torn since yesterday, until tomorrow 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, whose 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, whose serrid 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 tonight my work was left, until I vowed that since my brain and eyes of dancing seemed so faint, my feet should have some dancing too, and thus it was I met with you. Well, I suppose it was 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, the many aims or the few years, because tonight it all appears something I do not know again. The clouds 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 unlaced, and warm sweets open to the waist, all golden in the lamplight's gleam, you know not what a book you seem, half read by lightning in a dream. I should you know my journey, nay, and I should be ashamed to say, for beauty so well worth a kiss, but while my thought runs on like this, with wasteful whims more than enough, I wonder what you're thinking of. If of myself you think at all, what is the thought, conjectural, on sorry matters best unsolved, or in me is each grace resolved, to fit me with allure, or sad to think perhaps you're merely glad at the time not drunk, or ruffianly, and let you rest upon my knee? For sometimes, were the truth confessed, you're thankful for a little rest, glad from a crush to rest within, from the heart's sickness and the din, where envy's voice at virtue's pitch mocks you because your gown is rich, and from the pale girl's dumb rebuke, whose ill-clad grace and tall warm look reclaim the strength that keeps her weak, and other nights than yours bespeak, and from the wise and childish elf, to schoolmate lesser than himself, pointing you out what thing you are, yes, from the daily jeer and jar, from shame and shame's outbraving too, is rest not sometimes sweet to you, but most from the hatefulness of man, whose spares not to end what he began, whose acts are ill, and his speech ill, who having used you at his will, thrusts you aside, as when I dine, I serve the dishes and the wine. Well, handsome Jenny, mind sit up, I've filled our glasses, let us sup, and do not let me think of you, lest shame of yours suffice for two. What, still so tired? Well, well, then keep your head there, so you do not sleep, but that the weariness may pass, and leave you merry, take this glass, ah, lazy lily hand, more blessed, if ne'er in rings it had been dressed, nor ever by a glove concealed, behold the lilies of the field, they toil, not neither do they spin, so go, the ancient texts begin, not of such rest as one of these, can share another rest than these, along each summer-thated path, from its new lord the garden hath, than that whose spring in blessings rang, which praised the bounteous husband man, 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, were they not gone too, Jenny, nay, but must your roses die, and those their purple 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 warms as yet a winter, sickness here, all want alone could waken fear, nothing but passion rings a tear, except when there may rise unsought, happy 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 veil they told her then for a child's tale. Jenny, you know the city now, a child can tell the tale there how, some things which are not yet enrolled, 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, a market night in the hay market, I learned that London children know, poor Jenny, all your pride and woe, have seen your lifted silken skirt, advertised 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, suppose I were to think aloud, what if to her all this was said, why as a volume seldom read, being opened halfway shuts again, so might the pages of her brain, be part of that such words and thence, close back upon the dusty sense, or is there hue or shape defined 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 day and night remember not, why Jenny you're asleep at last, asleep for 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 shown 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, of 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, my cousin Nell is fond of love, and she's the girl I'm proudest of, who does not prize her, guard her well, the love of changing 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, besides another's pride in her, one little part of all they share, the love himself shall ripen these, in a kind soil to just increase, through years of fertilising 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 fallen, 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 you shall say, that this fair tree may need in changes that may be, your children's children charity, scorned then no doubt as you are scorned, shall no man hold his pride forewarned, till in the end the day of days, at judgement one of his own race, as frail and lost as you, shall rise his daughter with his mother's eyes, how Jenny's clock ticks on the shelf, might not the dial scorn itself, that has such hours to register, yet as to me, even so to her, our golden sun and silver moon, and daily largesse of earth's boom, counted for life coins to one tune, and if as blindfold fates are tossed, through some one man this life be lost, shall soul not somehow pay for soul, fair shines the gilded aureole, in which our highest painter's place, some living woman's simple face, and the stilled features thus described, as Jenny's long throat droops aside, the shadows where the cheeks are thin, and pure white curve from ear to chin, with Raphael's Leonardo's hand, to show them two 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 man's pitiless doom must now comply, with lifelong hell what lullaby of 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 to 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 naught so foolish foulness may watch with hard eyes the sure decay, and so the lifeblood of this rose puddled with shameful knowledge flows, through leaves no chaste hand may unclose, yet still it keeps such faded show of whence was gathered long ago, that the crushed petal's lovely grain the sweetness of sanguine stain, scene of a woman's eyes must make her pitiful heart so prone to ache, love rose is 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 cipher of man's changeless sum, of last, past, present and to come, is 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 cursed 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 wholesomers have not warmed, which always withers so the stone he flung sits there death-blind alone, I, 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, you'd not believe by what strange roads thought travels when your beauty goads, a man tonight to think of toads, Jenny wake up why there's the dawn, and there's an early wagon 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 ghost-like as the lamps, so on the wings of daylight decamps my last night's frolic, glooms begin to shiver off as lights creep in, past the gauze curtains half-drawn to, and the lamps doubled shaded 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 reflected lying upon my knee, where teams with first foreshadowings, your pier-glass sprawl of diamond rings, and on your bosom all night worn yesterday's rose now droops forlorn, but dies not yet this summer morn, and now without as if some word had called upon them 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, and somehow in myself the dawn among stirred clouds and veils withdrawn, strikes grayly on her, lets her sleep, but will I 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 sleek confers, new magic on the magic purse, grim web how clogged with trivial lies between the threads, fine fumes arise, and shake their pictures in the brain, their role no streets in glare and rain, nor flagrant manswine wets his tusk, but delicately sighs in musk, a homage of the dim boudoir, or like a palpitating star, thrilled into song the opera night, breathes faint in the quick pulse of light, or at the carriage window shine which wears the choice, or free to dine, whilst 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, there reigns at least the acknowledged bell, apparelled beyond parallel, our Jenny yes we know your dreams, for even the Pathian Venus, seems a goddess are the realms of love, when silver shrine in shadowy grove, I or let offerings nicely placed, but hide Priapus to the waste, and who so looks on him shall see, an eligible deity, why Jenny waking here alone, may help you to remember one, though all the memories long out worn, of many a doubled 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, Jenny my love rang true for still, love at first sight is vague until, that 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 face like this, well of such thoughts so much I know, in my life as in hers they show, by a fog lean which I may near, a dark path I can strive to clear, only one kiss goodbye my dear.